Tesla hires former Segway, Apple hardware engineering lead to develop new cars

Company founder and CEO Elon Musk has publicly started his desire to make a more affordable EV plus cars that mostly drive themselves, and new hire Doug Field is in position to lead that charge. Joining Tesla as the Vice President of Vehicle Programs, he will be "responsible for driving development of new vehicles. " We'll have to wait and see what those new Teslas look like, but his resume immediately shows why Musk is interested in someone with his experience. Field began his career as an engineer at Ford and later served as the CTO of Segway before moving over to Apple in 2008, where he's been the VP of Mac Hardware Engineering leading development on the Macbook Air, Macbook Pro and iMac. 

FIRST TIZEN TABLET LAUNCHES IN JAPAN

Despite absorbing MeeGo, learning to run Android apps and pushing through a significant UI overhaul, devices running Tizen are notoriously hard to come by. Developers eyeing the platform in Japan, however, just got one more option: the Tizen build kit, from Systena. It's a package that includes developer tools, manuals and technical and consulting services from Systena, but the real star of the kit is the included 10.1 inch developer tablet. Packing a quad core 1.4GHz ARM Cortex A9 processor, 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage underneath a 1,920 x 1,200 display, this slab offers a Tizen 2.1 experience built specifically for app development and product demonstration. The company hasn't publicly posted a price for the kit, but interested developers can request more information through the company's website.The rest of us will have to settle for flashing our own devices.  

HTC ONE GETS BONUS GOOGLE DRIVE STORAGE

Google is taking a page out of Dropbox's book and offering free extra storage for certain HTC One handsets.The HTC One Max got 50GB of storage space out of the box,but we've been tipped that those with the handset's smaller sibling will net an additional 25GB of room in the cloud, all thanks to international Sense 5.5 (and Android 4.3) update that readers have already started receiving in Europe. These expansions are in addition to the complimentary 15GB of Drive space available to all Google users, bringing the allotted storage totals to 65GB and 40GB for One Max and One, respectively. There are a few caveats, though. According to Mountain View, the HTC One Developer Edition isn't eligible for this due to its bootloader. Furthermore, you can only activate this promo once per Google Account, which rules out gaming the offer to get even more space. 

SONY HDR - CX410VE

SONY HDR - CX410VE

SPECIFICATION

• 55x zoom
• Great image quality
• Image stabilisation
• 1080p at 50fps
• Excellent battery life
• Audio in, headphone out
• Optional extras

LONG, STEADY ZOOM

This camcoder effortlessly records silky smooth, razor-sharp footage at a TV-style 50fps or the more web-centric 25fps. Sony claims that you can even film with it, hand-held, as you run. The Sony's zoom takes it from a wide angle to 55x magnification and in digital zoom mode you can push it upto 350x.

 SLOW MOTION AND STILLS

The super smooth slow motion mode is a blast, capturing a couple of seconds of action and rendering the results in cheek-flapping slow-motion at a slightly reduced but usable resolution, so long as you don't mind it being interlaced rather than progressive video.There's also a mode for analyzing your golf shot which outputs a collage of animation frames on a still image, plus GPS tracking with a map to display your location.

PRO FEATURES

The Sony would make a decent semi-pro camera or a second camera for a pro setup. There's 5.1 surround sound recording, lots of control over focusing and exposure, and also an audio input so you can feed it a soundtrack from an external mic or a mixing desk. 

USB TAIL

Tucked into the hand strap you'll find a little USB tail which allows you to charge up the camera and offload footage to a computer when you don't have a card reader available. In the box there's thoughtful array of cables, including a USB extender and a microHDMI to regular HDMI cable.

SUMMARY

This is a great camcoder and image quality is excellent. It is well specced and featured without being overcomplicated with superflous features. If video matters top you, the Sony's neat mix of user friendly controls, a battery that lasts up to three hours and the ability to step up to more serious shooting should put it at the top of your wish list.  

THE SMART WALLET

Created in Japan, the living wallet has tiny wheels allowing it to roll away. When paired with an app, it'll monitor your bank account and swap between two modes, depending on how much you have to spend.

There are two modes available that is save and consume.

In the first, Save Mode, it slowly rolls away to discourage you. If you catch it , things get even weirder - it shouts for help. Carry on, and it'll actually call your partner or parents to tell them what you're trying to do.

However , in consumption mode, when you have the cash in your account, things are a lot nicer - and it'll even read out the top selling products to try and help you out with your shopping splurge.

iPAD AIR REVIEW

The new iPad Air is a hugely slimmed down version of Apple's class leading tablet and it also packs the A7 processor.

iPad Air: Size and build

Launched alongside the new iPad Mini Retina, the iPad Air is much thinner and lighter than it's predecessor at it's noticeable the first time you pick up the iPad Air. It certainly lives up to its moniker. At 7.5mm thin, 169.5mm wide and 240mm long and weighting just 469g, it's positively lightweight compared to the 662g heft of the iPad 4 and iPad 3 that both came with a thickness of 9.4mm.

It also beats all it's competitors. It trumps, the newly announced, Nokia 2520 at 8.7mm, the Nexus 10 at 839mm thin and the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 at 8.6mm thin. Colors have been updated too but don't expect an iPhone 5c rainbow, instead Apple introduced Space Grey and Champagne into the mix. In terms of external buttons and ports, it's business as usual. You'll find a lightning port, volume rocker, on/off button and a screen lock switch.

iPad Air: Features

It's go big or go home when it comes to the new features packed into the iPad Air. Alas, there's no Touch ID fingerprint scanning, as on the iPhone 5s so no biometrics on the big screen but there's still plenty to talk about.

When it comes to camera on tablets, Apple has always been a bit behind it's competitors but it's change on the new iPad. It's true the iPad has always had the same megapixel count as the Nexus 10 and beat the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 but picture quality was never great.

iPad Air vs iPad 4

Although it doesn't add megapixels, remaining at five, the picture quality is better . The front-facing video cam has also been updated to new HD FaceTime camera found on the new iPhone 5c and 5s. During our short play with the tablet the pictures were noticeably crisper than those taken on the iPad 3 and a world apart from those taken on an iPad 2. We're still unconvinced as to whether a tablet should be a picture taking device but if your tablets your snapper of choice then the new iPad Air will certainly do the job.

iPad Air: Screen

We've come to expect pin-sharp images on Apple's Retina screen and the iPad Air doesn't disappoint. It's the same size as the iPad 4 at 9.7 inch and the same resolution (2048x1536, 264ppi) but what Apple has managed to do, this time around, is place a Retina screen in a thinner bezel. iOS 7 icons pop out of the screen and on the bigger screen that parallax-effect even gave us a touch of motion sickness.

iPad Air: Performance

The chip has been upgraded from the A6X to the A7 with the same 64-bit architecture of the iPhone 5s. The iPhone 5s was blisteringly fast and it's the same story with the new iPad Air. Apps open in an instant, scrubbing through videos is a breeze and multitasking no-problem.. Of course, the 64-bit is a future proofing exercise but we can't wait to get our hands on some apps that make the most of the iPad's super-power.