Hasta La Gadget!

The late-night host burns Santos over his latest wild claim.

Tesla has big expansion plans for its first Gigafactory near Reno, Nevada. The automaker has announced that it’s investing $3.6 billion to build two new factories in the complex and hire 3,000 additional workers. That’s bigger than the company’s initial investment ($3.5 billion) when it made a commitment to build the facility back in 2014. One of the new Nevada factories will manufacture its 4680-type batteries, while the other will be Tesla’s first factory to mass produce the Semi. 

The automaker delivered its first production Semis to Pepsi in December 2022, five years after it first showed off the electric rig and following several delays. Tesla currently manufactures the truck in limited quantities only, but it has long been planning to start volume production in Nevada. The company’s Semi truck uses less than 2 kWh per mile of energy and can go between 300 and 500 miles on a single charge. Tesla claims owners will enjoy an estimated fuel savings of up to $200,000 within the first three years. 

While the Semi factory will finally allow Tesla to mass produce its trucks, its 4680 battery factory will help it achieve its goals of slashing battery costs by half and ramping up production to be able to sell 20 million electric vehicles by 2030. Tesla introduced the 4680 battery — named as such because its cells measure 46mm by 80mm — as a higher-capacity-but-cheaper option to power its vehicles. According to Reuters, though, the company has been having issues scaling up its production due to the dry-coating technique used to coat its cells. Tesla didn’t say how it’s addressing those issues, but it did say that the new factory will have the capacity to produce enough 4680 batteries for 1.5 million light duty vehicles every year.

The Texas senator is cool with classified documents at Mike Pence’s house but not so fine with the ones found at Joe Biden’s.

The House speaker described the obvious payback as “not anything political.”

The next version of Android could bar you from installing ancient apps in some circumstances. 9to5Google has spotted a code change indicating that Android 14 will block users from sideloading apps (that is, installing them outside of the Play Store) that don’t target a minimum version of the operating system. It will stop the installation of particularly old software at first, but Google expects to “progressively” raise the bar to require at least Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

The move is meant to boost security and privacy. Malware writers can’t just target old versions of Android to escape security measures in newer releases, Google says. Google already requires that apps in the Play Store target at least Android 12. This update denies attempts to install vintage apps through the web or third-party stores.

This won’t completely thwart you if there’s a classic app you’re determined to run. It’s up to device manufacturers to enable the cutoff, and there will still be a way to install apps through a command shell. The new policy is meant to stop people from unwittingly installing malware. If you sideload an old app on an Android 14 phone with this measure switched on, you likely know exactly what you’re doing.

Still, it’s notable that Google is limiting sideloading at all. For some, it’s a reason to buy an Android phone instead of an iPhone — you’re free to install apps that aren’t available in the official store. However, it’s not surprising that Google is clamping down. Android malware writers frequently (though not always) rely on sideloading precisely because there are fewer restrictions than in the Play Store. A block on old apps won’t put an end to malware, but it could tighten the platform’s overall security.