NHTSA opens investigation into Tesla remote parking features

The National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration is investigating the remote parking features in some Tesla vehicles. The tools in question are Smart Summon and the unfortunately acronymed Actual Smart Summon, which uses cameras in the car to automatically control the parking process.

The agency’s Office of Defects Investigation has received 12 complaints of alleged crashes from the Smart Summon feature and one complaint about Actual Smart Summon use allegedly resulting in a crash. It has also reviewed three media reports of seemingly similar collisions involving Actual Smart Summon where the driver did not have the time to react to avoid a crash. The remote parking feature is available in an estimated 2.6 million vehicles, including the 2016-2025 Model S, 2016 Model X, 2018-2025 Model Xs, 2019-2025 Model 3s, and 2019-2025 Model Ys.

Tesla reported its first ever drop in deliveries at the start of the month. The company reported about 1.78 million vehicle deliveries over 2024, compared with 1.81 million in 2023.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/nhtsa-opens-investigation-into-tesla-remote-parking-features-194559802.html?src=rss 

Instagram blocked LGBTQ hashtags and treated them as ‘sexually suggestive content’

Meta’s Instagram has been blocking LGBTQ-related hashtags for months, according to reporting by User Mag. This was done under the company’s “sensitive content” policy as an attempt to restrict “sexually suggestive content.” The blocked hashtags included stuff like #lesbian, #gay, #bisexualpride, #transwomen and dozens more. Those hashtags don’t seem that sexually suggestive to me but, hey, what do I know.

The terms were hidden from both search and discovery for any users who had their sensitive content filter turned on. Teenage users have that filter turned on by default. When teens attempted to search these terms, they were directed to a blank page and a prompt from Meta to review the company’s “sensitive content” restrictions that hide “sexually explicit” posts.

User Mag’s reporting caused Meta to reverse course on these restrictions, after having been in place for months. The company called it a simple mistake and said that “it’s important to us that all communities feel safe and welcome on Meta apps, and we do not consider LGBTQ+ terms to be sensitive under our policies.”

The restrictions occurred after the company started hiding topics from teens as part of a larger “youth and well-being” privacy update. This was advertised as an effort to keep kids away from content that promoted self-harm. It’s worth noting that heterosexual content, even stuff that showed couples engaged in romantic activities, weren’t restricted in any way, according to User Mag.

“A responsible and inclusive company would not build an algorithm that classifies some LGBTQ hashtags as ‘sensitive content,’ hiding helpful and age-appropriate content from young people by default,” a spokesperson for GLAAD said. LGBTQ creators have long suffered under Instagram’s content policies, often experiencing shadow bans and having their content labeled as “non-recommendable.”

While Meta says it was all a big misunderstanding, promising to get to the bottom of things, this is only one example of the company throwing marginalized communities under the bus. The company just changed its “Hateful Content” policy, adding language that seemingly allows folks to brazenly attack gay and trans people. The company says that it’s now fine to post “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality.” It’s worth noting that the word “transgenderism” has long been used by bad actors to purposely misrepresent trans identities as an ideology.

This is part of a larger effort by Meta to become more like the notoriously-thriving social media empire X. Meta just got rid of its fact checkers, in favor of community guidelines, and removed a mention in its Hateful Conduct policy that suggested online rhetoric could “promote offline violence.”

WATCH: “We’re gonna get rid of fact-checkers…”

In what looks almost like a hostage video, Zuckerberg bends the knee to Trump entirely — doing away with Facebook fact-checkers and moving the process to Texas under the guise of protecting free expression. pic.twitter.com/Ox0jeqBDBZ

— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) January 7, 2025

CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also been cozying up to Donald Trump. He’s been busy pumping money into Trump’s inauguration fund, flying down to Mar-a-Lago for chats, replacing Meta’s longtime policy chief Nick Clegg with a former George W. Bush aide and appointing UFC CEO (and Trump booster) Dana White to the company’s board.

Zuckerberg went as far as to explicitly indicate that many of the above changes were made because Donald Trump won the presidential election, calling it “a cultural tipping point.” He also called third-party fact checkers “too politically biased” and suggested that many of Europe’s laws against hate speech promoted censorship and make it “difficult to build anything innovative there.” Remember when he was going to fight Elon Musk? It looks like Zuckerberg just lost via submission to our new First Buddy without ever entering the ring.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/instagram-blocked-lgbtq-hashtags-and-treated-them-as-sexually-suggestive-content-200808209.html?src=rss 

EcoFlow’s Solar hat is better for the planet than your style

Another CES, another opportunity for the technology industry to lob a trebuchet’s worth of molten lead at the last vestiges of my dignity. This year, it’s EcoFlow that is showing off this delightful solar hat that does more for then planet, and your phone, than it does your personal brand. Admittedly, if you’re wearing a suitably outdoorsy ‘fit, it’s probably not going to look too out of place, but its aesthetics are second to its function.

As the name implies, the EcoFlow Power Hat has small solar panels embedded in the brim that, when you’re out and about, will help charge your portable devices. The brim is segmented, and each section has a little set of Monocrystalline Silicon cells with a rated efficiency of 24 percent.

Photo by Daniel Cooper

On the underside of the brim, there’s a little plastic box with an LED light showing you the hat is generating a charge. Pull back the attached rubber tabs and you’ll find a USB-A and USB-C port, letting you charge one or two devices at a time.

EcoFlow says it’ll output a maximum of 5V / 2.4A, so you can expect it to keep your phone or tablet topped up rather than producing anything too life-saving. There’s no battery on board, naturally, so you’ll need to keep a long wire handy to run from your cap down to whichever pocket you keep your devices near.

Photo by Daniel Cooper

The company says it’s sturdy enough, with each panel on a discrete segment you can fold down to near pocket size. It’s IP65-rated for water and dust ingress, but steer clear of immersing it in water or putting it in a washing machine.

The EcoFlow Power Hat is presently on sale for $129, plus or minus the cost of your dignity.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/ecoflows-solar-hat-is-better-for-the-planet-than-your-style-203358237.html?src=rss 

Honda’s Saloon and Space-Hub EV concepts are now prototypes

The futuristic looking concept electric vehicles that Honda had introduced at last year’s CES are now much closer to becoming models you can actually buy. Honda has unveiled prototype versions of the 0 Series Saloon sedan and the 0 Series SUV at CES 2025. It also revealed that it will launch their production models next year in North America followed by Japan and Europe. The Honda 0 SUV will be introduced in the first half of 2026 and will be the first model in the lineup to enter production. It’s a mid-size SUV that was originally presented as the Space-Hub concept and will be based company’s newly developed dedicated EV architecture. 

Meanwhile, the production version of the flagship Honda 0 Saloon EV, characterized by its low height and wedge-shaped design, will be launched late next year. Both models will be capable of Level 3 automated driving, which means they can steer, brake and accelerate by themselves, though the driver will have to be ready to take over anytime needed. They will also be equipped with ASIMO OS, the new operating system Honda developed for its next-gen EVs. It is, of course, named after the Asimo humanoid robot the company introduced at CES over two decades ago and will power both its automated driving and infotainment systems. 

The Honda 0 Series vehicles will come with a North American Charging Standard (NACS) port, so they’ll be able to access Tesla’s charging stations. Honda is working on building a charging network with other automakers, as well, under a joint venture called IONNA. The initiative, which aims to build a nationwide network of over 30,000 charging stations by 2030, was founded by Honda, BMW, GM, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis and Toyota. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/hondas-saloon-and-space-hub-ev-concepts-are-now-prototypes-190047136.html?src=rss 

CES 2025: BMW’s vision-spanning Panoramic iDrive will make sure you never miss another navigation prompt

At a surprisingly star-studded event this morning, BMW showed off the final form of its long-awaited and long-teased Panoramic iDrive system. It’s a combination of an oddly angular touchscreen, a windshield-spanning heads-up display, and an LLM-powered AI assistant. The big news? It’s coming to every future BMW.

Comedians Tim Meadows and Ken Jeong welcomed the assembled crowd into a studio designed to look like an oversized interior of the company’s upcoming Neue Klasse. They did their best to goad BMW’s Bavarian executives into a series of jokes and bits that mostly fell as flat as the central touchscreen that now dominates the iDrive experience.

Thankfully, it’s not comedy that brought us to Las Vegas this week, and the good news for BMW is that the interface looks good. The software behind the scenes is called BMW Operating System X, and it powers a new iDrive that combines screens and voice commands to create a familiar but far more comprehensive interface than anything we’ve seen in a BMW before.

It all starts with that central touchscreen, but even that is different. Rather than being square or curved like in other BMWs, the new panel is rhomboid-shaped, a slanted polygon whose leaning posture doesn’t seem to really augment the experience but does at least look distinctive.

The panel is also tilted slightly towards the driver and is running software that is at least familiar to anyone who’s used the current iDrive interface. A static bar along the bottom provides quick access to the most important things, like controls for the heating system. Above that, a stylized, 3D view of the world makes sure you’re always situated.

Things get more interesting when you move up the dashboard. Running along the base of the windshield is what BMW calls Panoramic Vision. It spans the width of the car, with the left-most portion handling typical gauge cluster duties like displaying current speed, active safety controls, and even warnings.

Tim Stevens for Engadget

The rest of the Panoramic Vision display is customizable, with six widgets that you can drag up from the central touchscreen covering things like outside temperature, navigation ETA, and even another widget showing you turn-by-turn information. It’s much that we’ve seen in demos from BMW before, but now nearly ready for prime-time with the cars shipping at the end of this year.

Given the Panoramic Vision’s importance in the overall in-car experience, I asked the guy who oversaw the development of all this, BMW’s SVP of connected company technical operations Stephan Durach, whether there were any visibility issues in the bright sunlight.

“This technology is a little bit different than a traditional heads-up display… we’re using black print on the bottom. In bright sunlight, it’s even performing a little bit better,” he said. “You’ll not have any issues at all.”

If that’s not enough displays for you, there’s another HUD situated on the left, up above the Panoramic Vision, which gives 3D navigation information for the driver. Yes, between the touchscreen, the Panoramic Vision display, and the HUD, you can get three separate feeds of turn-by-turn directions.

In other words, if you miss a turn in this thing, you have nobody to blame but yourself.

BMW

BMW also quickly demonstrated a new in-car LLM that, for now at least, is only for navigation. It was all pre-recorded, so it’s anyone’s guess how well this will work in reality, but in the demo, at least, it quickly found “the best beach” and navigated there. When our pretend driver left the city, the car even asked whether to automatically engage Sport Mode, which was a nice touch.

BMW’s Durach confirmed that Android Auto and Apple CarPlay will still be supported. He also teased that there are some more fun tricks to come that will get passengers more involved in the experience.

BMW ended the presentation by confirming that Panoramic iDrive will not only be coming to the Neue Klasse when it finally hits the market at the end of this year but will be the standard interface for all new BMWs that launch after that. That means the days of the rotary iDrive controller are now officially numbered.

I asked Durach if he had any parting words for this once-revolutionary vehicular interface.

“We take a look at all of our data and usage… you can really see that the usage of our rotary controller is declining dramatically,” he said. “People don’t even touch it.”

It’s a harsh send-off, but these days you just can’t cry over progress.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/ces-2025-bmws-vision-spanning-panoramic-idrive-will-make-sure-you-never-miss-another-navigation-prompt-192022046.html?src=rss 

Tom Holland’s Net Worth: How Much Money the Actor Has Now

Tom Holland is notoriously known for starring in the ‘Spider-Man’ franchise. We all know he’s raking in the big bucks. How much you ask? Prepare to be shocked by his net worth.

Tom Holland is notoriously known for starring in the ‘Spider-Man’ franchise. We all know he’s raking in the big bucks. How much you ask? Prepare to be shocked by his net worth. 

CES 2025: Lenovo’s 10th-gen Legion Pro 7i gaming laptop supports up to RTX 5090 graphics

Lenovo’s Legion gaming laptops are getting a big refresh thanks to CES 2025. The new series of notebooks includes what’s probably the star of the show, the 10th-generation Legion Pro 7i. It supports up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU thanks in part to a cooling system that enables up to 250W thermal design power (TDP). It also uses an AI engine to dynamically adjust CPU and GPU wattage for optimal performance.

It’ll also support up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor to pair with that high-powered NVIDIA graphics card. Lenovo’s Legion Coldfront Vapor cooling helps it support that high-end hardware. On top of that, you’ll get up to 64GB of 6400Mhz DDR5 (2 X 32GB) RAM and a built-in LA1+LA3 AI chip. All of that is a recipe for souped-up gaming on the go — or really just about anything you need to do, anywhere at any time.

The laptop has up to a 16-inch WQXGA (2560 x 1600, 16:10) OLED display. The screen supports up to a 240Hz frame rate and has a 1ms response time. It can reach 500 nits of brightness. The Legion Pro 7i has two USB-C ports (one of which is Thunderbolt 4), three USB-A ports and HDMI 2.1. With all that high-end hardware inside, it’s quite the beefy machine, with a starting weight of around 6 lbs.

It launches in March. But all that horsepower doesn’t come cheap: Lenovo says the Legion Pro 7i has an expected starting price of $2,399 — and you can safely bet that RTX 5090 variants will fetch a premium on top of that.

Lenovo Legion Pro 5i

Lenovo

Meanwhile, the 10th-gen Legion Pro 5i (Intel) and Legion Pro 5 (AMD) offer up to an Intel Ultra 9 275HX (the same as the Pro 7i) or AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX, respectively. Their thermal power supports up to 200W, which enables up to an RTX 5070 Ti Laptop for graphics. You can order configurations with up to 32GB (2 X 16GB) of 6400Mhz DDR5 RAM.

It also has up to a 16-inch WQXGA (2560 x 1600, 16:10) OLED screen at up to 500 nits with a 1ms response time. But at 165Hz, its maximum frame rates don’t go quite as high as the Pro 7i.

Like the Pro 7i, the Pro 5 series uses Lenovo’s AI Engine+ with a Scenario Detection feature that dynamically tweaks the CPU and GPU wattage based on the moment’s needs. It has the same port setup as the Pro 7i, but at least it weighs a bit less (a minimum of 5.58 lbs).

Unfortunately, you’ll have to wait longer for the more affordable Pro 5 series. The Legion Pro 5i launches in May (starting at $1,499), while the Legion Pro 5 arrives in June (starting at $1,399).

Lenovo Legion 7i

Lenovo

Lenovo also has a 10th-gen version of the (non-“Pro”) Legion 7i, which the company’s oddly specific PR copy says is for “gamers actively studying in STEM programs and fields.” It also supports up to an Intel Ultra 9 275HX and RTX 5070 GPU and has up to a 16-inch WQXGA (2560 x 1600) OLED with up to 240Hz and 1ms. However, its Coldfront Hyper cooling maxes out at a lower 145W TDP, so you won’t get the same top-level performance as the more expensive Pro models.

Starting at 4.4 lbs., it’s notably thinner and lighter than the Pro models. (The fact that it’s more portable but still decently powerful likely explains Lenovo’s strange “STEM student” framing.) It has an all-metal chassis. It will be available in June for $1,599.

Finally, there’s also a 10th-gen Legion 5i. Sticking with the oddly specific PR framing, Lenovo says this model is for “university gamers in non-STEM programs.” (Gotta nail down every niche!) It has up to a 15.1-inch WQXGA (2560 x 1600, 16:10, 165Hz, 1ms) OLED and supports up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX and RTX 5070 Laptop GPU. (There’s also an AMD variant with up to a Ryzen AI 7 350 CPU.)

The Legion 5i is slated for a May launch, starting at $1,299.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/ces-2025-lenovos-10th-gen-legion-pro-7i-gaming-laptop-supports-up-to-rtx-5090-graphics-160004613.html?src=rss 

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