Adi Robertson reports via The Verge: California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed AB 1394, a law that would punish web services for "knowingly facilitating, aiding, or abetting commercial sexual exploitation" of children. It's one of several online regulations that California has passed in recent years, some of which have been challenged as unconstitutional. Newsom's office indicated in a press release yesterday that he had signed AB 1394, which passed California's legislature in late September.

The law is set to take effect on January 1, 2025. It adds new rules and liabilities aimed at making social media services crack down on child sexual abuse material, adding punishments for sites that "knowingly" leave reported material online. More broadly, it defines "aiding or abetting" to include "deploy[ing] a system, design, feature, or affordance that is a substantial factor in causing minor users to be victims of commercial sexual exploitation." Services can limit their risks by conducting regular audits of their systems. As motivation, the bill text cites whistleblower complaints that Facebook responded inadequately to child abuse on the platform and a 2022 Forbes article alleging that TikTok Live had become a haven for adults to prey on teenage users.

Windows 10 may be just shy of two years away from the ax, but its successor, Windows 11, appears to be as unpopular as ever. From a report: The end of Windows 10 support is getting closer. Unless the company blinks, October 14, 2025, will be the end of the line for the Home and Pro editions of the operating system, yet users seem reluctant to move on to Windows 11. There was a marked reluctance by users to move from Windows 7, back in the day, but some of the reasons for hesitancy this time are different. The move to Windows 10 usually required the purchase of new hardware. It tended to be unavoidable -- 7 could run on far lower-spec devices than later versions. The move from Windows 10 to Windows 11 will also require new hardware, but for different reasons.

Infamously, Microsoft axed support for a raft of hardware with Windows 11, including older Intel CPUs, on security grounds. The result was that hardware that will run Windows 10 perfectly well will not accept the new operating system. And this is not due to performance problems (who remembers trying to run Vista on XP hardware?) but rather because of Microsoft's edict. The result? A collective shrug from PC users. Windows 10 does the job. Why upgrade? The figures speak for themselves. Windows 10 dominates the desktop. According to Statcounter, the worldwide Windows version desktop market share puts Windows 10 at 71.64 percent, with Windows 11 trailing at 23.61 percent.

EU antitrust regulators are asking Microsoft's users and rivals whether Bing should comply with new tough tech rules and also whether that should be the case for Apple's iMessage, Reuters reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The European Commission in September opened investigations to assess whether Microsoft's Bing, Edge and Microsoft Advertising as well as Apple's iMessage should be subject to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The probes came after the companies contested the EU competition regulator labelling these services as core platform services under the DMA.

The DMA requires Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet's Google, Amazon, Meta Platforms and ByteDance to allow for third-party apps or app stores on their platforms and to make it easier for users to switch from default apps to rivals, among other obligations. The Commission sent out questionnaires earlier this month, asking rivals and users to rate the importance of Microsoft's three services and Apple's iMessage versus competing services.

As the FCC leans towards reinstating net neutrality and regulating ISPs under Title II, the broadband sector is set to challenge the move. Previously, courts have upheld FCC's decisions. However, legal experts believe the Supreme Court's current stance may hinder the FCC's authority to classify broadband as a telecommunications service. ArsTechnica: The major question here is whether the FCC has authority to decide that broadband is a telecommunications service, which is important because only telecommunications services can be regulated under Title II's common-carrier framework. "A Commission decision reclassifying broadband as a Title II telecommunications service will not survive a Supreme Court encounter with the major questions doctrine. It would be folly for the Commission and Congress to assume otherwise," two former Obama administration solicitors general, Donald Verrilli, Jr. and Ian Heath Gershengorn, argued in a white paper last month. According to Verrilli and Gershengorn, "There is every reason to think that a majority of the Supreme Court" would vote against the FCC.

Verrilli and Gershengorn express their view with a striking level of certainty given how difficult it usually is to predict a Supreme Court outcome -- particularly in a case like this, where the agency decision isn't even finalized. While litigation in lower courts is to be expected, it's not even clear that the Supreme Court will take up the case at all. The certainty expressed by Verrilli and Gershengorn is less surprising when you consider that their white paper was funded by USTelecom and NCTA -- The Internet & Television Association, two broadband industry trade groups that sued the Obama-era FCC in a failed attempt to overturn the net neutrality rules. The groups -- which represent firms like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Charter -- eventually got their way when then-FCC Chairman Ajit Pai led a repeal of the rules in 2017. But the industry-funded white paper has gotten plenty of attention, and the FCC is keenly aware of the so-called "major questions doctrine" that it describes. The FCC's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), which is pending a commission vote, will seek public comment on how the major questions doctrine might affect Title II regulation and net neutrality rules that would prohibit blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization.

An economist testified that Google made billions of dollars in extra ad revenue starting in 2017 — by making a secret change to its auction algorithm that bumped their revenues up 15%. Bloomberg reports: Michael Whinston, a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said Friday that Google modified the way it sold text ads via "Project Momiji" — named for the wooden Japanese dolls that have a hidden space for friends to exchange secret messages. The shift sought "to raise the prices against the highest bidder," Whinston told Judge Amit Mehta in federal court in Washington.

Google's advertising auctions require the winner to pay only a penny more than the runner-up. In 2016, the company discovered that the runner-up had often bid only 80% of the winner's offer. To help eliminate that 20% between the runner-up and what the winner was willing to pay, Google gave the second-place bidder a built-in handicap to make their offer more competitive, Whinston said, citing internal emails and sealed testimony by Google finance executive Jerry Dischler earlier in the case...

About two-thirds, more than 60%, of Google's total revenue comes from search ads, Dischler said previously, amounting to more than $100 billion in 2020.
In 2021 Google was also accused of running "a secret program to track bids on its ad-buying platform," according to the New York Post (citing reporting by the Wall Street Journal). A Texas-led antitrust suit accused Google "of using the information to gain an unfair market advantage that raked in hundreds of millions of dollars annually, according to a report."

And the Post's article also mentioned "an alleged hush-hush deal in which Google allegedly guaranteed that Facebook would win a fixed percentage of advertising deals."

The Street argues that Satya Nadella "has transformed Microsoft since taking over for former CEO Steve Ballmer. Instead of closing the company off from its rivals, Nadella has been open to working with companies that are also competitors like Apple." But they added that Nadella "remains at odds" with Google's parent company Alphabet, even testifying in the antitrust lawsuit against the company.

They highlight another example from Nadella's testimony (first spotted by GeekWire). Nadella also believes that Alphabet sells a false narrative that OEM partners have a choice when in reality they don't. "Google has carrots and it has massive sticks...'We'll remove Google Play if you don't have us as the primary browser.' And without Google Play, an Android phone is a brick. And so that is the type of stuff that is impossible to overcome. No OEM is going to do that," he said.
GeekWire also notes Nadella's comments about the U.S. government's antitrust case against Microsoft in 1998: "Google exists because of two things. One is because of our consent decree, where we had to put a lot of limits on what we could distribute and not distribute by default. And, second, because [of] the fact that you could distribute anything you wanted on Windows, and it's still the case, right, it's not just Google. ... The largest marketplace on Windows happens to be not from Microsoft, it's Steam. And so it's an open platform on which anybody can distribute anything."

In downtown San Francisco two vehicles were stopped at a red light on Monday night, reports the Washington Post — a regular car and a Cruise robotaxi. Both vehicles advanced when the light turned green, according to witness accounts and video recorded by the Cruise vehicle's internal cameras and reviewed by The Post. As the cars moved forward, the pedestrian entered the traffic lanes in front of them, according to the video, and was struck by the regular car. The video shows the victim rolling onto that vehicle's windshield and then being flung into the path of the driverless car, which stopped once it collided with the woman. According to Cruise spokesperson Hannah Lindow, the autonomous vehicle "braked aggressively to minimize the impact" but was unable to stop before rolling over the woman and coming to a halt. Photos published by the San Francisco Chronicle show the woman's leg sticking out from underneath the car's left rear wheel.
"According to Cruise, police had directed the company to keep the vehicle stationary, apparently with the pedestrian stuck beneath it," reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

Also from the San Francisco Chronicle: Austin Tutone, a bicycle delivery person, saw the woman trapped underneath the Cruise car and tried to reassure her as they waited for first-responders. "I told her, 'The ambulance is coming' and that she'd be okay. She was just screaming." He shared a photo of the aftermath with The Chronicle that appears to show the car tire on the woman's leg. San Francisco firefighters arrived and used the jaws of life to lift the car off the woman. She was transported to San Francisco General Hospital with "multiple traumatic injuries," said SFFD Capt. Justin Schorr. The victim was in critical condition as of late Tuesday afternoon, according to the hospital.

It appears that once the Cruise car sensed something underneath its rear axle, it came to a halt and turned on its hazard lights, Schorr said. Firefighters obstructed the sensors of the driverless car to alert the Cruise control center. He said representatives from Cruise responded to firefighters and "immediately disabled the car remotely." More from the San Francisco Chronicle: "When it comes to someone pinned beneath a vehicle, the most effective way to unpin them is to lift the vehicle," Sgt. Kathryn Winters, a spokesperson for the department, said in an interview. Were a driver to move a vehicle with a person lying there, "you run the risk of causing more injury." Once the person is freed, the car must stay in place as police gather evidence including "the location of the vehicle and/or vehicles before, during and after the collision," said Officer Eve Laokwansathitaya, another spokesperson.
The human driver who struck the pedestrian immediately fled the scene, and has not yet been identified.

Amazon has launched its first two satellites for its Project Kuiper, the tech giant's initiative to build a massive constellation of satellites that can provide internet coverage to Earth. From a report: An Atlas V rocket, operated by United Launch Alliance, lofted the pair of satellites en route to orbit from Florida at 2:06 p.m. local time Friday. The mission is still ongoing, and it's unclear when the satellites will be deployed from the rocket.

Project Kuiper's goal is to eventually put 3,326 satellites into low Earth orbit, where they will beam broadband internet service to the ground below, similar to Elon Musk's SpaceX Starlink. The two launched Friday, KuiperSat-1 and KuiperSat-2, are test satellites that will allow Amazon to demonstrate the ability to send and receive broadband signals. This mission has been long delayed. Amazon originally hoped to launch these satellites a year ago on a different, experimental rocket. However, the company wound up switching the launch vehicle for these satellites multiple times, eventually landing on ULA's workhorse Atlas V rocket, in order to get the satellites into space more quickly.

The Treasury Department released new guidance Friday outlining how car dealers can give customers instant access to the electric vehicle rebate starting in January 2024. It's the latest move by the Biden administration to bring down the cost of EVs in the hopes that more people will buy them. From a report: The new guidance lays out how dealers can effectively reduce the price of an EV by as much as $7,500 at the point of purchase rather than the customer having to wait until they file their taxes to claim the credit. The administration hopes that by applying the credit immediately, more people will be convinced to consider an EV for their next purchase, which will help toward achieving the goal of making EVs 50 percent of new car sales by 2030.

South Korea's telecommunications regulator said on Friday that Alphabet's Google and Apple have abused their dominant app market position and warned of possible fines totalling up to $50.5 million. From a report: The Korea Communications Commission (KCC) said in a statement that the two tech giants forced app developers into specific payment methods and caused unfair delay in app review. The KCC is notifying the companies for corrective action, and will deliberate on the fines, the statement said. "What KCC has shared today is the pre-notice and we will carefully review and submit our response. Once the final written decision is shared with us we will carefully review to evaluate the next course of action," Google said in a statement to Reuters. Apple also issued a statement, saying: "We disagree with the conclusions made by the KCC in their Examiner's Report, and believe the changes we have implemented to the App Store comply with the Telecommunications Business Act. As we have always done, we will continue to engage with the KCC to share our views."

Google Japan's latest DIY project is for people who can't get keyboards off their heads. From a report: Google isn't making this product. Instead, the Gboard CAPS project is another of Google Japan's joke keyboard ideas, like the 5.25-foot-long, single-row Gboard Stick Version keyboard shown off last year, used to promote Google's Gboard app. However, Google Japan seemingly prototyped the keyboard in real life. Everything you need to make this typing topper, including the firmware and hardware, is open source and available on GitHub. How do you type with the hat? It has a 6-axis sensor that reads its position. Turn the hat to select a character and press its top to enter. It pairs via Bluetooth, runs on a 3.7V, 120mAh battery, and charges via USB-C.

The Biden administration has urged the FCC to adopt strong rules to redress historic shortfalls that have left some communities lacking adequate broadband service. From a report: The position sets up a possible clash with large broadband providers that have warned the FCC, which is set to produce rules by next month, against unnecessary regulations. Clear rules are needed to close the digital divide that leaves millions without adequate broadband, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration said in a statement. The Commerce Department unit advises the president and develops internet policy. "Strong rules are needed to remedy unequal access to internet service, no matter what the cause may be," said Alan Davidson, the assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information, who is also the NTIA's top official. "Rules that combat digital discrimination will bring lasting relief to vulnerable communities that historically have been left behind online."

The FCC is considering regulations to prevent and eliminate digital discrimination of access based on income level, race and other factors, according to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. Broadband advocates have told the agency they want deep changes that will steer spending into cities. Some urban neighborhoods have suffered from disinvestment dating back to redlining decades ago, when government-aided discriminatory lending patterns starved neighborhoods of housing resources. Many of those areas still aren't prosperous, and haven't seen network upgrades.

Andrew Cunningham writes via Ars Technica: If you or your employer uses Microsoft Teams for communication, good news: Microsoft is releasing a fully rewritten version today for Windows PCs and Macs that promises to run faster while using fewer system resources. A preview of this app was originally released for Windows in March, but the final release covers all types of Teams instances, re-adds support for features like breakout rooms and third-party app support, and supports macOS. The new Teams app is notable for improved performance and reduced disk space usage, especially when running on Windows PCs. Microsoft says that the reformulated version of Teams is "up to two times faster while using 50 percent less memory" on Windows systems. That sound you hear is old and underspecced work PCs in offices around the world breathing a sigh of relief.

Microsoft credits its Edge WebView2 backend with helping improve performance and reduce disk usage on Windows. That's possible partly because WebView2 can use many of the same system files and the same runtime as the Edge browser built into Windows 10 and Windows 11. The older Teams app used the Electron framework, also used by communication apps like Slack and Discord. Though Electron and WebView2 are based on the Chromium browser engine, each Electron app includes its own self-contained version of the browser files, which all must be stored and updated separately.

At CES 2023, a startup called Displace introduced their "truly wireless" TV with swappable batteries and a vacuum suction system that can keep the display adhered to walls without traditional mounting. To address concerns about what would happen when those batteries become depleted or when the wall/surface the TV is mounted to cracks, Displace says it has designed a built-in landing gear safety system to protect the $3,000 wireless TV. The Verge reports: Here, friends, is where Displace's "self-lowering landing gear technology" comes in. And I'm just going to quote directly from the press release so you can get the full rundown on how it supposedly works: "Sensors within the Displace TV constantly measure the battery level and pressure in the vacuum suction system, analyze the wall's surface, and check leakage on the vacuum pumps. If the vacuum pumps are in danger of not maintaining a seal or the wall's integrity falters, the Displace TV automatically deploys four quick adhesives for stability and initiates a self-lowering landing gear system. The adhesives work as anchor points, as the Displace TV begins to lower itself gently on a zipline (from as high as 10 feet) and deploys a reusable foam at the bottom to protect the TV screen."

When a problem is detected, the Displace attaches an adhesive frame onto the wall and begins lowering the display to the floor (with rope) from that frame. As all of this is happening, the TV generates a lot of sound and even flashing lights in an attempt to keep the area clear of children or animals. Once it's safely on the ground, you can pull the frame off the wall and reinsert it into the back of the TV. [...] The self-landing technology works at heights of up to 10 feet. When you're ready to put the TV back in its place, you just push the foam feet back into the TV, replace the adhesive tapes, and that's it. You can watch a demo of the safety system on YouTube.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Following preliminary objections over Google's data terms, set out back in January by Germany's antitrust watchdog, the tech giant has agreed to make changes that will give users a better choice over its use of their information, the country's Federal Cartel Office (FCO) said today. The commitments cover situations where Google would like to combine personal data from one Google service with personal data from other Google or non-Google sources or cross-use these data in Google services that are provided separately, per the authority.

Per the FCO decision document (PDF): "The Commitments cover in principle all services operated by Google and directed to end users in Germany with more than one million monthly active users (MAU) in Germany [and Android Automotive whether it meets that threshold or not]." But, as we report below, Google's core platform services designated under the EU's DMA are not covered -- nor is Fitbit, which the document notes is already subject to "far-reaching obligations regarding the cross-service processing of health and wellness data" as a result of EU merger control. [...]

Per the FCO decision document, the implementation date (in principle) for Google's commitments is September 30, 2024 — with an earlier date of March 6, 2024 for commitments covering Google Assistant and Contacts. But the FCO notes that it may provide Google with an extension upon "substantiated request". Once implemented, the commitments will have a five year duration from their start date. The document also notes that if, in the future, a Google service falls out of the DMA designation as a core platform service and meets the FCO usage threshold then these local commitments will be applied to it. The converse will also apply; meaning if the European Commission designates one of the Google services covered by this commitments to the DMA list of core platform services it would no longer fall under this arrangement. Gmail is an interesting example here as the EU recently accepted Google's arguments to exclude the web mail service from the DMA list of core platform services -- but the tech giant is facing future restrictions on how it can use Gmail users' data under the FCO commitments (even if these will only apply in Germany). Commenting in a statement, Andreas Mundt, president of the Bundeskartellamt, said: "Data are key for many business models used by large digital companies. The market power of large digital companies is based on the collection, processing and combination of data. Google's competitors do not have these data and are thus faced with serious competitive disadvantages. In the future users of Google services will have a much better choice as to what happens to their data, how Google can use them and whether their data may be used across services. This not only protects the users' right to determine the use of their data but also curbs Google's data-driven market power. Large digital companies offer a wide range of different digital services. Without the users' free and informed consent the data from Google's services and third-party services can no longer be cross-used in separate services offered by Google or even be combined. We have made sure that Google will provide a separate choice option in the future."

Hyundai and Kia said on Thursday that they will adopt Tesla's electric vehicle charging technology in the United States. Reuters reports: Joining their global peers, including Ford Motor, General Motors and Nissan in adopting Tesla's North American Charging Standard (NACS), Hyundai's and Kia's moves take the Elon Musk-led company's superchargers closer to becoming the industry standard at the expense of the rival Combined Charging System (CCS). Hyundai and Kia's new EVs will come with a NACS port, starting in the fourth quarter of 2024 in the United States, the companies said.

However, in Canada, Hyundai EVs equipped with the NACS port would be available in the first half of 2025, while Kia's EVs with the technology by the end of 2024. The move gives Hyundai and Kia EVs with NACS ports access to more than 12,000 Tesla Superchargers across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, the companies said. The South Korean automakers also said that they would offer adapters to owners of existing and future Hyundai and Kia EVs with the current CCS giving them access to Tesla's Supercharging Network in the first quarter of 2025.

Apple held talks with DuckDuckGo to replace Alphabet's Google as the default search engine for the private mode on Apple's Safari browser, but ultimately rejected the idea. From a report: The details of those talks -- and Apple's discussions about buying Microsoft's Bing search engine in 2018 and 2020 -- were revealed late Wednesday in transcripts unsealed by the judge overseeing the US government's antitrust trial against Google. US District Judge Amit Mehta ruled Wednesday that he would unseal the testimony of DuckDuckGo Chief Executive Officer Gabriel Weinberg and Apple executive John Giannandrea, both of whom testified in the Washington trial in closed sessions. Weinberg testified that DuckDuckGo had about 20 meetings and phone calls with Apple executives, including the head of Safari, in 2018 and 2019 about becoming the default search engine for private browsing mode. In private mode, Safari doesn't track websites that a user visits or keep a history of what a person has accessed.

"We were talking about it, I thought they would launch it," Weinberg said, noting that Apple had integrated several of DuckDuckGo's other privacy technologies into Safari. "Multiple times we've gotten integrations all the way through the finish line. Really, almost everything we've pitched except for search." But Giannandrea, who joined Apple as the head of search in 2018, said that to his knowledge Apple hadn't considered switching to DuckDuckGo. In a February 2019 email to other Apple executives, Giannandrea said it was "probably a bad idea" to switch to DuckDuckGo for private browsing in Safari. "The motivating factor for setting DuckDuckGo as the default for private browsing was an assumption" that it would be more private, Giannandrea testified. Because DuckDuckGo relies on Bing for its search information, it also likely provides Microsoft some user information, he said, which led him to believe that DuckDuckGo's "marketing about privacy is somewhat incongruent with the details."

"Every year the Grace Hopper Celebration, a conference and career fair aimed at non-males, brings women in the tech industry together," writes long-time Slashdot reader piojo. "This year, a large number of men showed up. The women were not pleased." Wired reports: AnitaB.org, the nonprofit that runs the conference, said there was "an increase in participation of self-identifying males" at this year's event. The nonprofit says it believes allyship from men is important and noted it cannot ban men from attending due to federal nondiscrimination protections in the US. Organizers expressed frustration. Past iterations of the conference have "always felt safe and loving and embracing," said Bo Young Lee, president of advisory at AnitaB.org, in a LinkedIn post. "And this year, I must admit, I didn't feel this way."

Cullen White, AnitaB.org's chief impact officer, said in a video posted to X, formerly Twitter, that some registrants had lied about their gender identity when signing up, and men were now taking up space and time with recruiters that should go to women. "All of those are limited resources to which you have no right," White said. [...] During the conference, videos posted to TikTok showed a sea of men waiting in line to enter the conference or speak with recruiters in the expo hall. Men and women are seen running into the expo as a staffer yells for them to slow down. Avni Barman, the founder of female-talent focused media platform Gen She, says she immediately noticed "tons" more men and a more chaotic scene this time compared to previous years. According to Layoffs.fyi, tech companies around the world laid off more than 400,000 workers in 2022 and 2023. "As job cuts bite, all prospective tech workers have become more desperate for opportunities," reports Wired.

Becky Ferreira writes via the New York Times: Last November, a satellite in low-Earth orbit unfurled into an expansive array that extends across nearly 700 square feet, about the size of a studio apartment. The satellite, BlueWalker 3, has since become one of the brightest objects in the sky, outshining some of the most radiant stars in the Milky Way, according to a study published on Monday in Nature -- and it is just the first of dozens of similar satellites that are in development by AST SpaceMobile, a company that aims to keep smartphones connected from orbit. "The issue is not necessarily that one satellite," said Siegfried Eggl, an astrophysicist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and an author of the new study, "but that it is a predecessor or prototype of a constellation, so there's going to be a lot of those out there eventually."

Initially launched in September 2022, BlueWalker 3 is the forerunner of AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird satellites, which aim to serve as a network of orbital cell towers with the goal "to democratize access to knowledge and information regardless of where people live and work," a spokesperson for AST SpaceMobile said. Last month, BlueWalker 3 successfully relayed its first 5G connection to a smartphone in a cellular coverage gap on Earth. AST SpaceMobile is one of many companies racing to capture the surging demand for global broadband connectivity. "At the moment, there are 18 constellations that we know are planned all over the world," Dr. Eggl said. "The total number of satellites is a stunning half a million that people are planning to put up there. This is 100 times more than we already have."

AST SpaceMobile made BlueWalker 3's array so large in order to beam strong cellular coverage directly to phones on Earth. The satellite is made of many small antennas that can connect existing smartphones, which is an approach that distinguishes the company from Starlink and other planned constellations that currently rely on ground antennas or dishes. [...] AST SpaceMobile said that it was working with astronomers on techniques to reduce disruptions. It also contrasted the number in its constellation with the tens of thousands planned by other companies. The spokesperson said it could "provide substantial global coverage with around 90 satellites." Though BlueBird satellites would be far fewer in number, they are at least 64 times as big and bright as a Starlink satellite. The SpaceX orbiters are also brightest in the days after their deployment, but they become much fainter once they settle into their target orbits. Astronomers expect that the BlueBird satellites will remain bright in the sky throughout most of their lifetime. As a consequence, one of these satellites could interfere with data captured by astronomical observatories.

Long-time Slashdot reader RockDoctor writes: Regardless of their other potential benefits, modern cars, and modern electric cars in particular, involve complex networks of computer code, hardware, and servo systems cooperating (?) to deliver services to the user, like acceleration, steering and braking. Slashdot nerderati know better than most that such complex networks can never show unexpected, non-designed behavior, due to the infallibility of hardware, program coders and system designers... Yeah. Right. "I'll have some of what he's been smoking!" That's Musk-grade optimism.

On Sunday evening, a middle-aged driver in a "brand new" vehicle found it would not decelerate below 30mph (50kmph). He retained steering control, and avoided crashing until police vehicles "boxed in" his vehicle and helped him exit into a police van (most have sliding side doors) from the moving vehicle. The police then "carried out a controlled halt" on the unmanned vehicle, stopping it from driving away with the van's brakes until a roadside assistance technician arrived 3 hours later and managed to shut it down. "[W]hen the [technician] got to me [...] later, he plugged in the car to do a diagnostic check and there was pages of faults," said the "kidnapped" driver from Glasgow. "He said he had never seen anything like it and decided he was not willing to turn the engine on to see what was wrong."

By inference, the vehicle did not have a mechanical brake ("hand brake": English; "parking brake": American), which should have been able to keep the vehicle halted regardless of the motor's actions (even if a "clutch" did get burned out). From the only time I've been inside an electric car, I can't say if that is normal; it's certainly something I'll look for if I ever rent another. Had the failure happened at 10 a.m. in the morning, not 10 p.m. in the evening, the body count could have been ... substantial.

A dumb question, stemming from my only use of an electric car: do they have a weight sensor under the driver's seat that locks-out the main motor unless there is (say) 30kg in the driver's seat? Most have some such sensors -- they trigger the "seatbelt not fastened" alarm or silence it for empty seats -- but whether they can override the drive system ... ?