The first full-production version of the Tesla Model 3 goes to Elon Musk

Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced last week that the company’s Model 3 was entering into full production then. Now, the first car rolls off the assembly line and heads to the CEO himself. Tesla investor and board member Ira Ehrenpreis was the first on to place a deposit on the car but he gave it to Musk as a gift for the CEO’s 46^th birthday. Ehrenpreis will then get the number two car off the production line. Musk, of course, teased an image of the car, which is the first mass-produced car and most affordable vehicle from the company.

Tesla has a goal of producing 500,000 units in 2018, which is definitely a big bump from the 85,000 units the cars sold back in 2016. What’s driving the demand for the Tesla Model 3 is that it costs around US$35,000. It does, however, feature a simpler design that the Model S and Model X and the first available version of the car has fewer options to choose from, such as exterior color, wheels, interior, and the ability to enable Tesla’s Autopilot functionality. All-wheel drive and bigger battery packs seen in the Model S and X, will come at a later date once production of the cars are fully operational.

Source: CNET

Review: Ecobee 3 Lite smart thermostat

By Gadjo C. Sevilla

Ecobee is an innovator in the smart thermostat and smart home automation space.

The Ecobee 3 Lite smart thermostat is a more affordable version of the popular Ecobee 3 and integrates with Samsung SmarThings, Apple HomeKit as well as Amazon Alexa for voice control.

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Spotify tries out ‘driving mode’ for its Android app

Tinkering with your phone while driving is a dangerous thing to do. And that extends to trying to do things like switch playlists on your Spotify app. And it seems the music streaming service is doing something about it—or at least they’re testing something out. Some Android users seem to have gained access to a new driving mode feature that’ll keep your eyes and hands on the wheel while you use the app. As seen in the screenshots shared by Reddit user Chris54721, it features larger buttons, verbal song announcements, and voice control support. There seems to be a new car icon, too, which is obviously meant to toggle the feature. Spotify won’t comment about the feature and said they “test new products all the time and have no news to share.”

Source: Engadget

Dating app helps you find people who look like your favorite celebrity

Dating apps have their own gimmicks to have you choose them over the many others out there. A UK-based dating app has a funny/creepy new feature, depending on who you ask. Badoo now has a “lookalike” feature, which basically lets you search for someone based on who they resemble. If you can’t date Tom Hiddleston, who says that you can’t date someone who looks like him? The app will let you upload the photo of whomever you want and it uses image recognition technology to find you similar-looking faces. Badoo’s tech identifies 160 facial features like eyebrows, hair color, chin size, etc. and takes those details and assigns a unique number of combinations to each face. It’ll then find you the best matches among the millions of images on the app. Badoo also comes preloaded with some recognizable faces, like Jake Gyllenhaal. And since you can link your Facebook account, you can look for people from your own life.

Source: Fast Company