This week, Tesla made a major announcement about the availability of its self-driving tech, Apple revealed when its next MacBooks are going to be announced, and we reviewed Google’s new Pixel XL. These are the top stories to catch you up on this crazy week in tech.
1. Elon Musk made an announcement that as of now, all Tesla cars being produced will have all the hardware they need onboard to achieve full Level 5 self-driving in the future. The self-driving system will be an $8,000 add-on for vehicles to enable the software. Musk also announced that he’s targeting a coast-to-coast test drive of a fully self-driving Tesla by late 2017.
2. Apple announced it will be holding a MacBook event on October 27th. Hints started to appear about a brand new MacBook Pro with an OLED mini screen that could be called the Magic Toolbar and would replace the function row on the keyboard.
3. A major cyberattack against an internet directory caused an outage for many popular sites like Twitter, Shopify, Spotify, Reddit, Vox Media, Airbnb and the New York Times. The outages are the result of a DDoS attack on the DNS provider Dyn.
4. We reviewed the Google Pixel XL, concluding that the $796 device feels like a bridge to the future of the company.
5. Chinese tech company LeEco burst into the North American market at a large event. The company introduced a line of TVs, two phones and a VR headset, along with a slew of other consumer electronics and a Netflix-type streaming service. Go big or go home, right?
6. Nintendo announced its next home gaming system, the Nintendo Switch. As rumored, the system appears to be something of a home console/portable console hybrid. Here’s everything we know about the crazy new console. We also got to go hands-on with the NES Classic Edition, which ships just in time for the holidays on November 11.
7. With Theranos, the SEC is finally getting the case its been waiting for. The company swiftly fell from grace after lawsuits and criminal investigations. It’s an ideal scenario for the SEC, which is investigating Theranos and widely expected to use a case against it to expand its mandate into Silicon Valley’s startup ecosystem.
8. Facebook is embracing utility with a slew of new features that launched this week. From Facebook Pages, you’ll now be able to order food, request an appointment with a business, or buy movie and event tickets without ever leaving Facebook.
9. Former Braintree founder Bryan Johnson invested $100 million of his own money into Kernel, a new project with the sole purpose of building hardware and software to augment human intelligence. Kernel is still very much in the planning stages, but the idea is to facilitate communication between brain cells by hacking the “neural code” that enables our brain to store and recall key information.
10. High profile investor Peter Thiel is said to be donating $1.25 million to Donald Trump’s campaign, despite recent controversies. Thiel is also slated to speak on his support for the GOP candidate. One question remains: why do we care?
11. Jobs and recruiting marketplace Glassdoor released a new tool to help people better determine their worth in salary compensation. Know Your Worth aims to help people gain insight into how much money they make in comparison to other people working with similar jobs.
12. A telehealth startup called Opternative filed suit against South Carolina over a law that bars people from getting a glasses prescription with an online eye exam. An attorney on the case said that the law is particularly troubling because it appears to be driven by a wish to protect business interests rather than public health and safety.
Featured Image: Ringo H.W. Chiu/AP