Gadgets
Tesla Holds ‘Giga Fest’ at Disputed Plant Near Berlin to Woo Critics
Some local residents have planned a counter-protest at the site on the day of the event to underline their opposition to the factory.
Musk will personally drop by at the “Giga Fest”, where the company has laid on a big wheel, electronic music and vegetarian food trucks — an event conceived in the image of Berlin, Europe’s party capital.
Thousands are expected to attend, with locals given priority for the guest list announced by Tesla earlier this week.
Devotees of the brand shared their excitement ahead of the day on social media. “Gigafest here we come. Thrilled to see what they have built in my hometown,” tweeted one.
The project’s opponents are planning another form of welcome. “Let’s take to the streets against this environmental devastation pushed by politicians,” is the call made by protest organisers.
Environmental concerns
Tesla began construction at the site in Gruenheide in 2019 after receiving preliminary approval under a special procedure.
But local authorities are still in the process of evaluating the environmental impact of the factory, despite construction being all but done.
The special treatment afforded to the company angered some residents, who are concerned about the impact the plant could have on the water supply and biodiversity.
Supported by NGOs, opponents have sent letters, held protests and gone to court to try and stop the project.
“Tesla has to follow the same procedures as other companies,” the Green League campaign group said recently.
Last year, work at the Tesla site was temporarily stopped after NGOs requested an injunction to protect the nearby natural habitat of endangered species of lizards and snakes while they were in their winter slumber.
A residents’ consultation, part of the approval process, is due to close on October 14.
Until the survey is completed, final approval cannot be given and production at the factory will not be allowed to begin.
Even then, the state environment ministry in Brandenburg, where the plant is located, told AFP “no date has been fixed” for this authorisation.
Despite local resistance, construction has been completed in double-quick time, replacing a swathe of pine forest with an enormous concrete-paved expanse accessed via “Tesla Road”.
Economies of scale
About 500,000 cars a year should roll off the line at the factory just outside Berlin, Tesla’s first production location in Europe.
On the same 300-hectare plot, Musk also plans to build “the world’s biggest battery factory”.
The site will equally boast the “world’s largest die-casting machine”, said Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, director of the Center for Automotive Research in Germany.
The custom-built equipment should allow Tesla to “significantly reduce production costs”, Dudenhoeffer said.
In the event that the factory is not approved, the carmaker will be compelled to dismantle the entire works at its own cost.
Such a turn of events is, however, “unlikely”, said Dudenhoeffer, since the project has considerable “political support”.
“Every political party is in favour,” the car expert explained, while noting that changes to the factory facade could be requested by authorities, delaying the beginning of production further.
First planned for July 2021, the start has already been pushed back to the end of this year as a result of the company’s administrative troubles.
Tesla was “irritated” by these setbacks, as it wrote in an open letter in March, in which the company called for a “reform” of Germany’s planning procedures.
Despite the country’s reputation for efficiency, major infrastructure projects are often slowed down by excess bureaucracy.
Berlin’s new international airport opened in October 2020 eight years later than first planned, while the construction of a new train station in Stuttgart is not yet finished, having begun in 2010.
“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”
The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.
Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.
Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.
In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.
To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.
Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.
The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.
Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.
The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.
For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
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