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Tesla adds ‘2048’ and ‘Super Breakout’ to its TeslAtari in-car gaming system

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Tesla has added two new games to its TeslAtari in-car gaming system in the latest iteration of CEO Elon Musk’s goal of bringing the most interactive fun to the company’s vehicles as possible: Super Breakout and 2048.

Super Breakout was originally released by Atari in 1978 as a follow up to its popular game Breakout where players move around a platform, bouncing a continuously moving ball upwards so that it crashes and breaks a large hovering brick wall. The addition of Super Breakout is keeping in line with the rest of the TeslAtari lineup: Missile Command, Asteroids, Lunar Lander, and Centipede.

2048, on the other hand, is a sliding block game that the Wall Street Journal once described as “Candy Crush for math geeks.” Players move blocks with computer-assigned numbers around, combining them to reach the number 2048. The game went viral in 2014 shortly after its 19-year-old creator posted it on GitHub for fun and constructive feedback.

A screenshot of 2048 in progress. | Credit: Gabriele Cirulli

New games are certainly a welcome addition for Tesla owners after a recent downsizing in the selection. Earth and Mars-based versions of the racing game Pole Position were previously included in the TeslAtari lineup and playable using the car’s steering wheel. However, they had to be removed due to legal hangups, per Musk. Pole Position is on the Atari platform, but the game rights are owned by Namco.

“Couldn’t resolve all the rights issues. Will add another racing game soon,” Musk tweeted.

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TeslAtari was released with Tesla’s Software Version 9 and is a nod to the personality and interests of its famous CEO. Musk is known for his love of video games and has continuously sought to bring their style of fun to Tesla’s products. He has discussed further game-type Easter Egg and TeslAtari additions to Tesla software over social media on numerous occasions and has even used the game concept to help improve system security. Tesla’s “bug bounty” program offers monetary payouts for hackers able to actively locate and report vulnerabilities on the company’s hardware and online services.

No further details have been provided regarding a replacement for Pole Position thus far, but Tesla and Musk have indicated the all-electric car company is developing its own games. Tesla’s job site advertised “Gaming Software Engineers” at one point and Musk himself drew attention to the company’s search for video game developers.

“If you’re into video game development, consider applying to Tesla. We want to make super fun games that integrate the center touch screen, phone & car irl,” he tweeted. “Please send examples of prior work when applying. Looking for max playability & creativity.”

Perhaps the software creds Tesla already has will lead to a new suite of exclusive games just for Tesla owners.

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Accidental computer geek, fascinated by most history and the multiplanetary future on its way. Quite keen on the democratization of space. | It's pronounced day-sha, but I answer to almost any variation thereof.

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Tesla reveals huge Cybercab detail in new guide for First Responders

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla revealed a major new Cybercab detail in a guide it released for First Responders, showing new territory in its beliefs and intentions for the ride-hailing-focused vehicle that entered production in April.

The First Responders Guide is released to give fire departments, paramedics, and other emergency personnel the proper guidance on what to do in the event of an accident, entrapment, or other situation that would require immediate attention.

On one of the pages of the First Responders Guide, Tesla revealed a stark detail about the Cybercab, which could help personnel enter the vehicle more easily in case of an emergency.

Tesla Cybercab has one important piece that AI4 cars might need for FSD

It shows Tesla has no intention of releasing any Cybercab units that were initially proposed for ride-hailing services for the general public with any manual controls, meaning a steering wheel or pedals:

“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or acceleration and brake pedals.”

This is a major development for those who continue to believe Tesla planned to release the Cybercab with any sort of manual controls so that passengers could take over if needed. However, when Tesla started manufacturing production versions of the Cybercab in Giga Texas earlier this year, they were spotted without a steering wheel or pedals.

It essentially confirms the company has no intentions of bringing manual controls to the car’s production versions. Some have argued that the likelihood of Tesla having something

There still are some Cybercab units out there with a steering wheel and pedals, and as Tesla said, these cars are engineering or test vehicles, which have Safety Monitors on board to help the car out of a precarious situation or emergency.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ Release Notes: new capabilities and features

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(Credit: Megan Gale/Twitter)

Tesla released the Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite to owners of Hardware 3 or AI3 vehicles today, adding several new features to the vehicles that were once believed to be capable of unsupervised self-driving.

Now, Tesla has released this modified suite to older Tesla vehicles, adding plenty of new features and capabilities.

Here are the full release notes for the suite:

  • Distilled the intelligence from HW4 V14 into HW3. This allows HW3 to directly learn how to handle scenarios using HW4 V14 as a guide. This process unlocks the improvements that have been made to HW4 including Reinforcement Learning (RL) and offline models for HW3.
  • Improved both proactive and reactive responsiveness across a wide variety of categories including navigation handling, merges and forks, pedestrian interactions, traffic lights, and vehicle cut-in scenarios.
  • Improved general comfort in nominal scenarios through fewer false slowdowns, smoother steering and more consistent lane centering.
  • Introduced parking, unparking, and reversing capabilities.
  • Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, or at the Curbside.
  • Speed Profiles are now available at all times, to further customize driving style preference.

These improvements, according to Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, help distill the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of AI3.

Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ for older cars finally gets released

He added:

“It includes destination options and speed profiles on city roads, but more importantly significantly improved safety. We hope you’ll enjoy it, once the build ships wide.”

Tesla will continue to roll out the v14 Lite suite more widely in the coming weeks, the company said.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ for older cars finally gets released

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tesla model 3 model y
Credit: Tesla Inc.

Tesla has finally released its Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite for older cars that equip the Hardware 3 or AI 3 chip, which have not been able to handle the newest versions of the company’s driver assistance software.

Tesla officially started releasing the v14 Lite suite to owners in the Early Access Program last night. The company’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, said that the rollout will continue over the next few weeks. The build distills the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of an AI3 car.

It also includes a variety of new features that were available to AI4 cars running v14, including:

  • Start Self-Driving from Park
  • Arrival and Parking Options
  • Speed Profiles

The release is highly anticipated because those owners with AI3 vehicles were early adopters into the FSD platform and were promised that their cars would be capable of achieving Full Self-Driving.

However, Tesla CEO Elon Musk admitted during the company’s recent Q1 Earnings Call that these vehicles would not be capable of achieving unsupervised Full Self-Driving, which is what Tesla had originally said.

Owners were not pleased with this answer, or the idea that their commitment to buying the suite outright for thousands of dollars would not yield the ability to drive without operating the car. Tesla gave some solutions for this, including a discount on a new car, or an upgrade to an AI4 or AI5 self-driving computer and new, upgraded cameras.

Tesla owners do not seem pleased with these options, as they require giving the company more money.

Nevertheless, it is important to note that Tesla came through for owners here by releasing v14 Lite before the end of Q2, something it had promised owners during the previous Earnings Call. Tesla has had trouble keeping up with timelines, but this is a big achievement for the team.

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