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Researchers from Georgia Tech and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have used a cheap projector to trick Tesla’s Autopilot system. By creating false positives, known as “phantom objects,” the team made the automated driving system believe it saw a pedestrian in the road and speed limit signs in trees. It all goes to show that computer vision systems may not be as robust as we’re led to believe. It’s unsettling to imagine that a $300 trick could fool your considerably-more-expensive Tesla Autopilot system, and yet, a team of researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Georgia Tech have pulled it off....

The Tesla Model 3 has driven out into the real world to much fanfare, including just being named Popular Mechanics Car of the Year. But now Elon Musk must answer the pesky production questions that have dogged Tesla’s attempts to scale up, and the reality is coming into clearer view. Tesla is now making about 2,000 Model 3s per week, according to an email from Musk that leaked out to the press....

What were the last remaining “dumb” nuclear bombs—bombs dropped from airplanes without a guidance system—are now being refitted with guidance technology as part of a program to keep the United States’ nuclear arsenal relevant. The $8 billion B61-12 Life Extension Program is installing new GPS-aided inertial navigation systems that can help guide B61 bombs to their targets more accurately. Last month, the Air Force along with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) completed the third developmental flight test of an inert B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb....

Perhaps you can tell by their name, but gribble worms are not the most beloved of crustaceans. First discovered in 1799, the invasive species was the bane of seamen everywhere because of their tendency to devour wood. Today, scientists are looking at this creature’s wood-consuming habits in a new light. They want to see whether its voracious appetite can help us turn wood into biofuel sustainably.What makes a gribble particularly talented is that it can digest the wood’s lignin....

Let’s say you need to get to the top of a snowy mountain for no good reason. Consider your options? Mule? Mules bite. Jeep? No, tires slip on near-vertical ice. How about an enclosed, two-ton tub with tank tracks that can be legally registered as a snowmobile? Now you’re talking.A tool for scientists, ski resorts, militaries, and polar explorers, snowcats are specialized machines used for snowy trail maintenance and tackling extreme terrain....

About 20 years ago, I was in India riding in the back of a Tata Sumo—a sort of Land Rover Defender knockoff—in Corbett National Park, when the driver plunged down a river embankment for a hairy water crossing. The water was a couple feet deep, with a swift current, but the Indian SUV trundled across and then bounced up over the opposite embankment. “Wow,” I said. “It’s amazing what you can do with four-wheel drive....

If you’ve ever been hesitant to bring your broken phone to a neighborhood repair shop or been afraid to crack it open yourself with your handy repair kit all because of a little sticker that threatens you with a voided warranty, don’t let it stop you again. The FTC has officially warned companies that use them that they are illegal and therefore pointless. Ignore away! The FTC sent warning letters to six major companies that remain nameless in the agency’s press release, but which are in the business of producing and selling “automobiles, cellular devices, and video gaming systems....

Earlier this week, President Trump continued to press his attack on a U.S. Navy system that uses magnetism to launch aircraft from aircraft carriers. At an event on a Japan-based navy warship, Trump reiterated his claim that the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, or EMALS, is inferior to the use of steam catapults to get airplanes in the air. Since 1950, aircraft carriers have used steam-powered catapults to launch aircraft. Steam is diverted from the ship’s boilers—steam boilers powered by the ship’s nuclear reactors—and piped up to just under the flight deck, where it is held and pressurized in special tanks....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhen New York retires its subway trains, they end up sleeping with the fishes. But that’s okay. It turns out that train cars are pretty good for the fishes, and sea life in general. Stripped down to their metal frames, the cars become a hot bed for coral, further bolstering the ocean food chain. What seems like garbage instead becomes a human-made habitat for undersea creatures.Photographer Stephen Mallon captured this process, capturing what happens to old G trains flung into the ocean....

In hindsight, it seems perfectly clear: Civilian airliners should stay out of conflict zones.Following today’s downing of a Malaysia Airlines 777 carrying 295 people, the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed it had issued warnings as far back as April about flying over parts of Ukraine. However, those warnings were for another part of the country—the contest region of Crimea that Russia occupied earlier this year, located south of where MH17 went down today....

The Arctic is one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change, and will be one of the most heavily impacted. Much of the planet’s excess carbon dioxide is concentrated at the North Pole, and temperatures are increasing faster there than anywhere else. A new study from NOAA highlights just how bad things have already gotten: It says 95 percent of the Arctic’s oldest and most resilient ice is already gone....

The oldest nuclear plant in the United States has now officially closed a month ahead of schedule. The Oyster Creek Generating Station was shut down on Monday, bringing an end to nearly 50 years of operation.Oyster Creek first opened on December 1, 1969, on the coast of New Jersey. Over the past 49 years, the power plant has produced 636 megawatts of electricity and powered 600,000 homes. According to managing company Exelon Generation, the clean energy produced by the facility is the equivalent of taking around 31 million cars off the road....

Ever since the 1950, the U.S. military has maintained the policy of “assured destruction”: keeping an arsenal that could launch a counterstrike so devastating it would annihilate any aggressor. The strategy makes everyone involved—especially America’s enemies—squarely confront the unthinkable, making a nuclear war too terrible to contemplate, let alone start. The Combat Operations Center at NORAD, 1961. Bettmann//Getty ImagesFor the strategy to work, America must be able to back it up....

Engine: inline direct-injected two-stroke 3-cylinder, 1.9 liters / Power output: 115 H.O., 140 or 150 HP / Lower Unit: 20" or 25" / Best fuel economy: (Key West 203) 12.5 mpg at 1,000 rpm / Steering: mechanical cable, external hydraulic, digital power steering or tiller / Oil tank: 1.9 gallons, good for 50-60 hours / Maintenance interval: Five years or 500 hours.If you, like me, enjoy nerding out on outboard motors, then prepare to indulge your inner marine-propulsion geek with this news of Evinrude’s new 150-horsepower E-TEC G2....

Media Platforms Design TeamCritics may accuse McLaren’s new 650S as being a warmed-over 12C with a P1-inspired nose slapped on for good measure*, but this uprated model offers a mean little stopgap to the company’s upcoming Porsche 911 killer, the lower priced “baby” model whose niche will also include competitors from the likes of Mercedes-Benz AMG and Maserati.With its 640 horsepower output (650, if you’re metric), 24 more stallions are brought to the table and help deliver a sub 3-second 0 to 60 time....

Cities, at their best, exude a sense of permanence. But they haven’t always been there, of course, and there was a particular set of reasons why a city’s founders chose that site. Wendover Productions takes a look into why cities are the distances they are from each other, and how these basic needs have influenced cities for thousands of years.[youtube ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PWWtqfwacQ&t=115s[/youtube]During Wendover’s video you can see one ajor arc of civilization: needs being consolidated....

Instagram is one of the internet’s biggest time sinks, encouraging you to share every exciting moment of your life in the app and spend the rest of your time looking at photos from your friends. Now, Instagram implemented a new feature called ‘Activity Status’ that takes this dynamic to a new, creepier level.‘Activity Status’ shows you what your friends are doing on Instagram at all times, letting you know what they’re doing and when they were last online....

When their son asked for a Portal-themed bedroom for his 13th birthday, Randy Slavey and his wife decided to bring the look and feel of an Aperture Science test chamber straight from the video game to reality. From the paint to the sneaky use of mirrors, they went all out.Not only did Slavey paint 255 blue circles by hand to represent door trigger lights, he also converted the appropriate colors to hexidecimal numbers and used a website called EasyRGB to discover the corresponding paints that were needed....

While Hidden Figures was shut out of the Oscars, the Best Picture-nominated film has already begun to make its presence felt on pop culture as a whole. Lego’s latest fan-designed set, based around the women of NASA, shows that the film has helped to create an atmosphere where Katherine Johnson and Nancy Grace Roman can become minifigs.[Update: Lego has announced that this set will go on sale November 1, 2017, for $25....

Media Platforms Design TeamI was having way too much fun trimming a large shrub recently, and I think I got a little overenthusiastic. As I swung the bar of the trimmer up and down one of the bush’s sides, the cord swung too—right into the slashing jaws of the trimmer. Thunk. Trimmer silent. Breaker blown. Pride dented.I just spliced the cord—I wasn’t going to throw away a 40-foot extension cord—and kept working....