

[Via Hacked Gadgets]
Come on over, robot lovers. Toss those gloves and goggles aside for a moment and throw this guy some advice. What platform keeps you up in the garage at night?"I am an aspiring roboticist who has been using Lego Mindstorms NXT for a few years and I am looking for the next step up. I have a budget of about $400. I am looking for something that has more motors, more sensors, and a way to have it live feed video back to a computer. I would also like a platform that has a large amount of building that can be done on top of it, such as adding an arm or another array of sensors, or a different drive base. I'm new to the world of robotics outside of the NXT, so any tips would be appreciated as well. Thanks!"
Most Lego Mindstorms constructions have never slipped the surly bonds of Earth. The Flying Fortress Lego Blimp from Tyler Westmoreland and Chris Shepard won't be similarly held down, however. Courtesy of two NXTBee wireless adapters, Tyler and Chris can fly the Mindstorms NXT-driven airship using a remote control and adjustable propellers. There's no secret tricks involved, as everything is an off-the-shelf part that anyone can find, including the 55-inch helium balloons. We have proof: Tyler has shared the source code for both the blimp and the controller, so anyone with the resources can recreate the Flying Fortress for themselves. While the thought of homemade drone blimps looming overhead is slightly disconcerting, we'll steel our resolve when it means that most any enterprising builder can take Lego airborne.
[Thanks, @frankiebit]
Source: Dexter Industries
Facebook services are slowly coming back online after one of the biggest outages in recent memory. Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger’s apps appear to be working again, though some of the websites are loading more slowly than usual.
As of 6:05pm ET Monday, the "Facebook for Business Status" page was still showing "major disruptions," to the social network's core services. But that was still an improvement from earlier in the day when the website was offline entirely.
"To the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us: we're sorry," Facebook wrote in a statement posted to Twitter. The company confirmed its services "are coming back online now." In a post on Facebook, CEO Mark Zuckerberg also apologized for the services going down.
Zuckerberg didn’t elaborate on the cause of the lengthy outage. In an earlier tweet, the company’s outgoing Chief Technology Officer, Michael Schroepfer, cited “networking issues.”
To the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us: we're sorry. We’ve been working hard to restore access to our apps and services and are happy to report they are coming back online now. Thank you for bearing with us.
— Facebook (@Facebook) October 4, 2021
The outage lasted more than six hours, taking down Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Oculus. It also wreaked havoc on the company internally, with employees reportedly unable to access emails, Workplace and other tools. The New York Timesreported that employees were also physically locked out of offices as workers’ badges stopped working.
It also shaved billions of dollars off of Zuckerberg’s personal net worth as Facebook’s stock tanked, Bloomberg reported. Elsewhere, the company is still reeling from the fallout of a whistleblower who has accused the company of prioritizing “profits over safety.” The whistleblower was The Wall Street Journal’s primary source for several articles that details how Instagram is harmful to teens and the company’s controversial “cross check” program that allows high profile users to break its rules.
Security reporter Brian Krebs reported the outage was linked to issues with Facebook's BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) records, which prevented the company's services from being accessible. He later added it was "a routine BGP update gone wrong." DNS provider Cloudflare also cited BGP as the likely culprit, writing in a blog post that it was "as if someone had 'pulled the cables' from their data centers all at once and disconnected them from the Internet."
Late into Monday evening, Facebook's engineering team published a blog post that attempted to explain what happened:
"Our engineering teams have learned that configuration changes on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between our data centers caused issues that interrupted this communication. This disruption to network traffic had a cascading effect on the way our data centers communicate, bringing our services to a halt."
It went on to say that the root cause of the outage was a "faulty configuration change" and there's no evidence that user data was compromised due to the downtime.
Update 10:30PM ET: Added a statement from Facebook Engineering's blog post.
Tesla has been ordered to pay $137 million in damages to a former Black worker who accused the company of turning a blind eye to discrimination and racial abuse at the company's EV plant in Fremont California, The Washington Post has reported. A San Francisco federal court jury awarded the judgement — reportedly one of the largest in an individual race discrimination employment case — to Owen Diaz, an elevator operator who worked as a contract employee in 2015 and 2016.
In the lawsuit, Diaz alleged that he faced discrimination "straight from the Jim Crow era," in which he was subjected to racial slurs. He alleged that Tesla employees left drawings of swastikas, racist graffiti and offensive cartoons around the plant, while supervisors neglected to halt the abuse. "Tesla's progressive image was a façade papering over its regressive, demeaning treatment of African-American employees," according to the lawsuit.
The jury awarded Diaz $6.9 million for emotional distress, but the majority, $130 million, was punitive damages against Tesla. "It's a great thing when one of the richest corporations in America has to have a reckoning of the abhorrent conditions at its factory for Black people," said the lawyer for Diaz, Lawrence Organ.
"It took four long years to get to this point,” Diaz told The New York Times. “It’s like a big weight has been pulled off my shoulders.”
In response to the verdict, Tesla downplayed the allegations in a blog post written by human resources VP Valerie Capers Workman. "In addition to Mr. Diaz, three other witnesses (all non-Tesla contract employees) testified at trial that they regularly heard racial slurs (including the N-word) on the Fremont factory floor,” she wrote. “While they all agreed that the use of the N-word was not appropriate in the workplace, they also agreed that most of the time they thought the language was used in a ‘friendly’ manner and usually by African-American colleagues.”
Tesla added that it was responsive to Mr. Diaz's complaints, firing two contractors and suspending another. She said that while the facts didn't justify the verdict, the company was "not perfect" in 2015 and 2016, "but we have come a long way." The company has yet to say whether it plans to appeal.
The 2021 Apple TV 4K saw major improvements over the previous model, especially with performance and the improved Siri remote. However, it's still pretty expensive for a set-top streaming device with a starting price of $179. If you've been waiting for a sale to pick one up, you can now save $20 on the 32GB model and buy one for just $159 at Adorama — one of the better prices we've seen.
Buy Apple TV 4K 32GB at Adorama - $159With a review score of 90, the 2021 Apple TV 4K is among the best high-end streaming boxes available, particularly for Apple users. The A12 Bionic processor delivers zippy performance, and it supports Dolby Vision at 60 fps and Dolby Atmos sound, along with AirPlay 3 and screen mirroring. It also supports HomeKit, letting you ask Siri to show you video feeds, control smart lights, locks and more.
The key difference with the last model, however, is the redesigned Siri remote. It's not only larger and easier to use, but also touch sensitive so you can swipe between options more easily. Best of all, Apple's sometimes-maligned Siri voice assistant works well with Apple TV, easily handling commands like "Play Ted Lasso" or "Show me some new comedy films."
The primary downside, as mentioned, is the price. Roku's Ultra is only $100 (and often less on sale), while Google's Chromecast with Google TV, which finally comes with a remote, is $50. However, Apple TV 4K is loaded with nice features, especially for folks in Apple's ecosystem, and today's sale makes it a lot more affordable.