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Daily Archives: July 19, 2023

Mercedes: Pay us again to unlock full accellaration on EQS and EQE – yes you already own the hardware.

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Mercedes-Benz has new finalized pricing on its vexing “Acceleration Increase” subscription revealed last year that can eke out more electric performance — without any physical modification — from the automaker’s current EQE and EQS EV models, Car and Driver reports.

The updated Acceleration Increase pricing starts at $60 per month, or you can save about $120 and pay $600 per year instead. That pricing only applies to the AWD EQE 350 sedan and its SUV counterpart. Meanwhile, the pricier AWD EQS 450 car and SUV command a higher $90 per month (or $900 per year) rate for their own boost.

Mercedes-Benz had initially set the subscription at $1,200 per year, but now it’s been reduced a bit to a slightly-less-unreasonable rate. The automaker is also letting you pay a one-time fee of $1,950 on the EQE and $2,950 on the EQS to unlock the Acceleration Increase permanently.

The unlock increases acceleration and power output to the motors by 20 to 24 percent, according to Mercedes-Benz. The EQE’s 215kW total output increases to 260kW, and its 0–60 mph time decreases to 5.1 seconds (from 6) for the sedan and 5.2 seconds (from 6.2) on the SUV. Meanwhile, the EQS goes from 265kW to 330kW and decreases its 0–60 mph to 4.5 seconds (from 5.3) and 4.9 seconds (from 5.8) on the SUV.

For those who do choose the monthly subscription, they’d be paying the same as a full unlock in just under three years of owning either vehicle. It seems that Mercedes-Benz’s monthly subscription pricing model is designed for customers who are leasing the vehicle for a short period or only want to show off the performance temporarily while taking visiting friends or family on joy rides.

The era of automakers adding monthly subscriptions and microtransactions to vehicles is becoming a troubling trend. Tesla was early to selling such options when it offered a $3,250 unlock to use the full battery capacity of some older Model S vehicles. More recently, there have been cars with heated seats that are subject to software locks and subscriptions from Tesla and BMW, respectively.

The EQS and EQE aren’t the only artificially nerfed electric cars to offer paid unlocks. Polestar offers a $1,195 one-time fee for a boost, and Tesla also has a performance unlock for its EVs. But if you really want a quick EV and you’re willing to pay over $100,000 for an EQS already, you have quicker options in the Tesla Model S Plaid or the AMG version of the EQS.

Source: Mercedes-Benz’s EQS and EQE can be uncorked with a monthly fee – The Verge

How is this legal? You bought the car and the accellerative capacity already. But they will make you pay again to use it?

AI shows classroom conversations predict academic success

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Who would have thought in-class, off-topic dialog can be a significant predictor of a student’s success in school? Scientists at Tsinghua University had a hunch and decided to deep-dive into how and AI may help an under-studied segment of the education pool: K-6th grade students learning in live, online classes.

By analyzing the classroom dialogs of these children, scientists at Tsinghua University developed neural network models to predict what behaviors may lead to a more successful student.

[…]

The researchers published their results in the Journal of Social Computing on March, 31. Valid findings were drawn from the data recorded and the models used that can be used to accurately predict .

“The most important message from this paper is that high-performing students, regardless of whether they are enrolled in STEM or non-STEM courses, consistently exhibit more , higher-level interactions concerning , and active participation in off-topic dialogs throughout the lesson,” said Jarder Luo, author and researcher of the study.

The implication here is that above the other markers of a successful student, which are cognition and positive emotion, the most important predictor of performance for STEM and non-STEM students is the interactive type of that student. In STEM students, the most crucial situation interactive types play in learning is during the middle stage of the lesson. In contrast, non-STEM students’ interactive types have about the same effect on the student’s performance during the middle and summary stages of the lesson.

Interactive dialog between students helps to streamline and integrate along with knowledge building; these open conversations help the young students navigate conversations generally, but more specifically conversations on topics the student is likely not very familiar with. This could be why the data so strongly suggests students more active in classroom dialog are typically higher-performing.

Additionally, the study also found that meta-cognition, that is, “thinking about thinking” is found to be more prevalent in higher-performing, non-STEM students than their STEM counterparts. This could be in part because science is often taught in a way that builds on a basis of knowledge, whereas other areas of study require a bit more planning and evaluation of the material.

[…]

Source: How AI can use classroom conversations to predict academic success

More information: Yuanyi Zhen et al, Prediction of Academic Performance of Students in Online Live Classroom Interactions—An Analysis Using Natural Language Processing and Deep Learning Methods, Journal of Social Computing (2023). DOI: 10.23919/JSC.2023.0007

Tesla directors agree to return $735 million following claims they were massively overpaid

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Elon Musk, Larry Ellison and other current and former members of Tesla’s board of directors will return $735 million to settle claims that they massively overpaid themselves, Reuters has reported. The deal wraps up a saga that started in 2020 stemming from a lawsuit filed by a police and firefighter retirement fund challenging stock options granted to Tesla’s board starting in 2017. Directors also agreed not to receive compensation for 2021, 2022 and 2023, and change the way compensation is calculated.

Tesla’s current board includes Elon Musk, his brother Kimbal, Fox News mogul James Murdoch, Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia and former Tesla CTO JB Straubel. The case is separate from a lawsuit filed by shareholders against a $56 billion compensation package awarded to CEO Elon Musk.

The Police and Fire Retirement System of the City of Detroit accused Tesla’s board of giving itself unfair and excessive compensation in the form of 11 million stock options between 2017 and 2020, saying it grossly exceeded norms for a corporate board. The $735 million settlement will be paid back to Tesla in what’s called a “derivative lawsuit” — the largest ever awarded by Delaware’s Court of Chancerty, according to Reuters.

Tesla argued that stock options were used to ensure Director’s incentives were aligned with investor goals. Tesla has yet to comment on the affair, but in court documents, said that it agreed to settle to eliminate the risk of future litigation.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is fighting a separate lawsuit to defend his $56 billion pay package. It was brought by shareholder Richard Tornette, who claimed that “the largest compensation grant in human history” was given to Musk, even though he didn’t focus entirely on Tesla. In 2020, he received the first of 12 $700 million payments as part of that package.

Source: Tesla reportedly suspected Musk was using company funds to build a literal glass house

Paris 2024 Olympics: Concern over French plan for AI surveillance

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Under a recent law, police will be able to use CCTV algorithms to pick up anomalies such as crowd rushes, fights or unattended bags.

The law explicitly rules out using facial recognition technology, as adopted by China, for example, in order to trace “suspicious” individuals.

But opponents say it is a thin end of the wedge. Even though the experimental period allowed by the law ends in March 2025, they fear the French government’s real aim is to make the new security provisions permanent.

“We’ve seen this before at previous Olympic Games like in Japan, Brazil and Greece. What were supposed to be special security arrangements for the special circumstances of the games, ended up being normalised,” says Noémie Levain, of the digital rights campaign group La Quadrature du Net (Squaring the Web).

[…]

“We will not – and cannot by law – provide facial recognition, so this is a wholly different operation from what you see in China,” he says.

“What makes us attractive is that we provide security, but within the framework of the law and ethics.”

But according to digital rights activist Noémie Levain, this is only a “narrative” that developers are using to sell their product – knowing full well that the government will almost certainly favour French companies over foreign firms when it comes to awarding the Olympics contracts.

“They say it makes all the difference that here there will be no facial recognition. We say it is essentially the same,” she says.

“AI video monitoring is a surveillance tool which allows the state to analyse our bodies, our behaviour, and decide whether it is normal or suspicious. Even without facial recognition, it enables mass control.

“We see it as just as scary as what is happening in China. It’s the same principle of losing the right to be anonymous, the right to act how we want to act in public, the right not to be watched.”

Source: Paris 2024 Olympics: Concern over French plan for AI surveillance – BBC News

Dual wavelengths of light shown to be effective against antibiotic-resistant superbug bacterium

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Scientists have combined two light wavelengths to deactivate a bacterium that is invulnerable to some of the world’s most widely used antibiotics, giving hope that the regime could be adapted as a potential disinfectant treatment.

Under the guidance of project leader Dr. Gale Brightwell, scientists at New Zealand’s AgResearch demonstrated the novel antimicrobial efficiency of a combination of two light wavelengths against a ‘superbug’ known as antibiotic-resistant extended-spectrum beta-lactamase E. coli.

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A combination of far UVC (222 nm) and blue LED (405 nm) light have been shown to be effective in the inactivation of a wide range of microorganisms while being much safer to use and handle as compared to traditional UVC at 254 nm, she said.

“The E. coli we chose for this investigation were extended-spectrum beta- lactamases producing E. coli (ESBL-Ec) as these bacteria produce enzymes that break down and destroy commonly used , including penicillins and cephalosporins, making these drugs ineffective for treating infections,” she said.

[…]

The team found that a combination of dual far-UVC and blue LED light could be used to disinfect both antibiotic resistant and antibiotic sensitive E. coli, offering a non-thermal technology that may not drive further .

However, if exposed to sub-lethal levels of dual and far-UVC light, the antibiotic resistant E. coli tested did exhibit light tolerance. One surprising finding was that this light tolerance was only exhibited by the antibiotic resistant E. coli and not the antibiotic sensitive E. coli that was also tested.

Gardner says further work is needed to understand whether the light tolerance is due to a genetic change, or some other mechanism.

“It is also important to investigate the development of light tolerance in other antimicrobial-resistant bacteria and to determine the minimum dose of far-UVC light that can create light tolerance as well as the potential of further resistance development to other things such as sanitizers, heat, and pH in bacteria for application purposes,” she said.

The findings are published in the Journal of Applied Microbiology.

More information: Amanda Gardner et al, Light Tolerance of Extended Spectrum ß-lactamase Producing Escherichia coli Strains After Repetitive Exposure to Far-UVC and Blue LED Light, Journal of Applied Microbiology (2023). DOI: 10.1093/jambio/lxad124

Source: Dual wavelengths of light shown to be effective against antibiotic-resistant bacterium

Spain antitrust watchdog fines Amazon, Apple $218 million for collusion and exclusion

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Spain’s antitrust watchdog on Tuesday said it had imposed fines worth a total 194.1 million euros ($218.03 million) on Amazon (AMZN.O) and Apple (AAPL.O) for colluding to limit the online sale of devices from Apple and competitors in Spain.

The two contracts the companies signed on Oct. 31, 2018 granting Amazon the status of authorized Apple dealer included anti-competitive clauses that affected the online market for electronic devices in Spain, CNMC, as the watchdog is known, said in a statement.

Apple was fined 143.6 million euros and Amazon 50.5 million euros. The two companies have two months to appeal the decision.

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“The two companies restricted without justification the number of sellers of Apple products on the Amazon website in Spain,” CNMC said.

More than 90% of the existing retailers who were using Amazon’s market place to sell Apple devices were blocked as a result, it added.

Amazon also reduced the capacity of retailers in the European Union based outside Spain to access Spanish customers, and restricted the advertising Apple’s competitors were allowed to place on its website when users searched for Apple products, the regulator said.

Following the deal between the two tech giants, the prices of Apple devices sold online rose in Spain, it added.

[…]

Source: Spain antitrust watchdog fines Amazon, Apple $218 million | Reuters

Yay the power of a monopoly!

‘Taco Tuesday’ is no longer a copyrighted phrase – wait you can copyright a phrase like that?!

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Taco Bell succeeded in its petition to remove the “Taco Tuesday” trademark held by Taco John’s, claiming it held an unfair monopoly over the phrase. Taco John’s CEO Jim Creel backed down from the fight on Tuesday, saying it isn’t worth the legal fees to retain the regional chain’s trademark.

“We’ve always prided ourselves on being the home of Taco Tuesday, but paying millions of dollars to lawyers to defend our mark just doesn’t feel like the right thing to do,” Taco John’s CEO Jim Creel said in a statement to CNN.

Taco John’s adopted the “Taco Tuesday” slogan back in the early 1980s as a two-for-one deal, labeling the promotion as “Taco Twosday” in an effort to ramp up sales. The company trademarked the term in 1989 and owned the right to the phrase in all states with the exception of New Jersey where Gregory’s Restaurant & Tavern beat out Taco John’s by trademarking the term in 1982.

Three decades later, Taco John’s finally received pushback when Taco Bell filed a petition with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in May to cancel the trademark, saying any restaurant should be able to use “Taco Tuesday.”

[…]

Source: ‘Taco Tuesday’ Has Been Liberated From Its Corporate Overlords

If you think about it, the ability to copyright 2 common words following each other doesn’t make sense at all really. In any 2 word combination, there must have been prior common use.

UK buys 3 radar E-7 planes for 90% of the price of original 5, creating huge capability gap, shows how broken procurement is

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The United Kingdom’s deal to buy three, rather than the previously planned five Boeing E-7A Wedgetail airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft for the Royal Air Force “represents extremely poor value for money” and “an absolute folly.” Those are among the conclusions of a report published today by the U.K. Defense Committee, a body that examines Ministry of Defense (MoD) expenditure, administration, and policy on behalf of the British parliament.

A computer-generated rendering of an E-7A Wedgetail in RAF service. <em>Crown Copyright</em>

A computer-generated rendering of an E-7A Wedgetail in RAF service. Crown Copyright

At the center of the report’s criticism of the procurement is the fact that, as a result of a contract stipulation, the MoD is having to pay for all five Northrop Grumman Multi-role Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) radars, even though only three aircraft — which will be designated Wedgetail AEW1 in RAF service — are being acquired. The report assesses that the total cost of the three-aircraft order will be $2.5 billion, compared to the $2.7 billion agreed for five of the radar planes.

“Even basic arithmetic would suggest that ordering three E-7s rather than five (at some 90 [percent] of the original acquisition cost) represents extremely poor value for money,” the report contends.

The E-7 procurement is one of three major defense deals dealt with by the report, which comes at the end of a six-month inquiry. The Type 26 anti-submarine warfare frigate for the Royal Navy and the Ajax armored fighting vehicle for the British Army also come in for criticism. Worryingly, the overall conclusion is that the U.K.’s defense procurement system is “broken” and that “multiple, successive reviews have not yet fixed it.”

[…]

The report suggests that the tiny fleet will be a “prize target” for aggressors. Not only will the AEW&C aircraft play a critical role in any high-end air campaign, but also planes of this type are increasingly under threat from long-range air defenses and are far from survivable in any kind of contested airspace.

The same report also warns that the initial operating capability for the RAF E-7s could be delayed by a further year to 2025. This is especially concerning considering that the RAF retired its previous E-3D Sentry AEW1 radar planes in 2021, leaving a massive capability gap.

[…]

Other problems are dogging the U.K.’s plans to field the E-7, the report explains, including the failure of Boeing and the British procurement arm, Defense Equipment and Support (DE&S), to agree on an in-service support contract. The report says that such a contract “should already have been successfully finalized long ago.”

[…]

Source: UK’s E-7 Radar Jet Deal Slammed As “Absolute Folly” In New Report

So procurement can’t argue that although the savings in initial procurement are minimal, the savings on the through life costs will be huge – because it has no idea what the through life costs of the platform are!