After a report by Reveal suggested that Tesla was underreporting workplace injuries at its Fremont plant, Tesla responded with a blog post calling the report “completely false” and pinning it all up as a “calculated disinformation campaign.”
Now California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (otherwise known as Cal/OSHA) is looking into things at the factory.
As first noted by Bloomberg, the agency won’t give specifics on why it’s looking into Tesla — but in a comment sent our way, they start off by mentioning the aforementioned report.
Here’s the statement sent to us by Cal/OSHA spokesperson Erika Monterroza:
Cal/OSHA takes seriously reports of workplace hazards and allegations of employers’ underreporting recordable work-related injuries and illnesses on the Log 300. Cal/OSHA currently has an open inspection at Tesla. While we do not disclose details of open inspections, Cal/OSHA’s inspections typically include a review of the employer’s Log 300, as well as a review to ensure that serious injuries are reported directly to Cal/OSHA within eight hours as required by law. Cal/OSHA’s regulations define a serious injury or illness as one that requires employee hospitalization for more than 24 hours for other than medical observation, or in which a part of the body is lost or permanent disfigurement occurs.
The “Log 300” mentioned here is part of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which requires employers with ten or more full time employees to report any serious workplace-related injury or illness, keeping said records for five years.
In a statement to Jalopnik regarding the investigation, Tesla notes that “Cal-OSHA is required to investigate any claims that are made, regardless of whether they have merit or are baseless (as we believe these are),” but that they’d be providing their “full cooperation”
We’ve reached out to Tesla for additional comment, but the company had not responded at the time of publishing. We’ll update this post if we hear back.
Source: TechCrunch
Make sense of all the dials on your old-school machines to wash your clothes better.
Source: CNET
The social network may join other tech giants that’re reducing dependence on chipmakers, Bloomberg reports. Its processors could help with AI and Oculus VR headsets.
Source: CNET
Getting to space is already tough, but getting there on short notice and then doing it again a couple weeks later? That’s a big ask. Nevertheless, DARPA is asking it as part of its Launch Challenge, announced today at the 34th Space Symposium in Colorado. Teams must take a payload to space with only days to prepare, then do it again soon after — if they want to win the $10M grand prize.
The idea is to nurture small space companies under what DARPA envisions as the future of launch conditions in both commercial and military situations. The ability to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances or fail gracefully if not will be critical in the launch ecosystem of the near future.
Here’s how it will go down. First, teams will have to pre-qualify to show they have the chops to execute this kind of task via a written explanation of their capabilities and the acquisition of a license to launch. Qualifying teams will be rewarded with $400,000 each.
Once a set of teams is established (applications close in December), DARPA will bide its time… and then spring the launches on them sometime in the second half of 2019.
How big is the payload? Does it need to be powered? Cooled? Does it need or provide data? All this will be a mystery until mere weeks before launch. For comparison, most launches are planned for years and only finalized months before the day. DARPA will, however, provide an “example orbit” earlier in 2019 so you have a general idea of what to expect.
Teams won’t even know where they’re launching from until just before. “Competitors should assume any current or future FAA-licensed spaceport may be used. Launch site services are planned to be austere — primarily a concrete pad with bolt-down fixtures and generator or shore power.” Basically, be ready to rough it.
Any team that successfully inserts the payload to the correct low-earth orbit will receive $2 million. But they won’t be able to rest on their laurels: the next launch, with similarly mysterious conditions, will take place within two weeks of the first.
Teams that get their second payload into orbit correctly qualify for the grand prize — they’ll be ranked by “mass, time, and accuracy.” First place takes home $10M, second place $9M, and third place $8M. Not bad.
More information will be available come May 23, when DARPA will host a meeting and Q&A. In the meantime, you can read the contest rules summary here (PDF), and if you happen to be a rocket scientist or the head of a commercial space outfit, you can register for the challenge here.
Source: TechCrunch
Getting yourself set up to stream games online is easier today than ever before, but if you need a little help getting started, here’s a quick and easy step-by-step guide on how to stream on YouTube Gaming.
The post How to stream on YouTube Gaming appeared first on Digital Trends.
Source: Digital trends
The latest stable version of Google Chrome for desktop now supports the Oculus Rift headset via WebVR. Chrome automatically detects the headset, determines its capabilities, and renders web-based VR at a compatible framerate.
The post Chrome’s desktop browser now supports web-based VR on the Oculus Rift appeared first on Digital Trends.
Source: Digital trends
Elon Musk’s rocket company launches a satellite designed to search for other Earths.
Source: CNET
NASA and SpaceX team up for the historic launch of NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. Watch the launch — and see the SpaceX boosters return to Earth — from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Source: CNET
Chipmaker in January promised to cut expenses to curry investor support against Broadcom’s hostile takeover bid.
Source: CNET
The only upside to Puerto Rico’s island-wide blackout is that engineers and aid groups could rethink it from the ground up. They may have to.
Source: Wired