If you think self-driving cars are either a great idea or a self-driving disaster waiting to happen, we’re sure you’re going to be happy to hear about a new start-up called Otto – which is for self-driving semi trucks. Turns out Otto was founded by an ex-Google engineer who built Google’s self-driving car.
He and three other ex-Googlers are hoping to bring self-driving safety to trucks by ditching human drivers altogether, and in truth, truck driving has been edging in this direction for a while now, with more and more autonomous features finding their way into trucks – like Volvos which can drive in reverse using automated guidance, but, for now, there’s still a driver at the wheel.
The developers say that their focus is on highway driving only to start, since that’s where trucks spend most of their time – and that’s where most accidents involving big rigs take place.
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Twitter is about to give you more room to write. No, the 140-character limit isn’t getting a bump, but photos and links will no longer count against that limit, according to Bloomberg.
The change hasn’t been implemented yet, but it could happen in the next few weeks as Twitter CEO and founder Jack Dorsey tries to rescue the slowly sinking Twitter ship. Founded in 2006 before Apple kicked off the smartphone revolution, Twitter’s 140 letter limit was initially designed to fit the display capabilities of that era’s flip-phones and other small-screen devices. Now that the world runs on smartphones, that limit seems a bit unnecessary.
Bloomberg says they even considered raising the letter limit to 10,000, but decided the 140-letter limit was what helped set the service apart. Twitter has some 330 million users, but adoption has stagnated while services like Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram have surged. The stock is near an all-time low and Twitter’s future may be in doubt – unless Dorsey decides to sell it.
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It’s not every day we get excited over a graphics card, but seeing how VR and 4K games keep ramping up the performance demands for our PCs, we’re happy to report that Nvidia has risen to the challenge with the new GTX 1080, a gaming powerhouse with a lot of new tech under the hood. Top of the list: it’s the first GPU to feature 16-nanometer chip tech.
Graphics cards have been stuck in the 28- nanometer realm for four years now, and our friends at PC World say the new 1080’s performance is “insane” compared to today’s top-shelf cards. It also features new GDDR5X memory tech and Pascal architecture, if you’re keeping track at home. All those features add up to more speed, more speed, and a bit more speed. The top-performing Founders Edition of the card will cost $700 when it comes out.
With VR coming on strong and 4K gaming becoming more commonplace, you’re probably going to need it, so start saving now.
