Good morning and a Happy New Year to you. Let’s get you up to speed in the world of tech today.
1. New year, new problems at Twitter
One of Twitter’s property landlords is reportedly suing the company, claiming that the social media giant owes $US136,000 (about $199,824 in Australia) in unpaid rent for the office in San Francisco. It was earlier reported by the New York Times that Twitter hadn’t paid rent on any of its offices internationally in weeks.
2. Tesla sets a delivery record
Staying on Elon Musk’s companies for a moment, Tesla has achieved a new delivery record. In Q4 2022, Tesla delivered a whopping 405,000 vehicles internationally, although it fell short of analyst predictions of 418,000 vehicles. Tesla announced that the Model 3/Y category made up most of its deliveries, at 388,131 vehicles, while the S/X category included 17,147 vehicles. Tesla’s stock price has been crashing over the past few months, although this could represent a turnaround.
In Q4, we produced >439k vehicles & delivered >405k vehicles → https://t.co/L5q9ELR9Pc
— Tesla (@Tesla) January 2, 2023
3. Hertz’s electric fleet pays off
Staying on electric vehicles for this next news item, and it looks like Hertz’s adoption of electric vehicles into its fleet of rental cars has paid off. The company has reportedly seen a 12 per cent increase in yearly profits and plans to take onboard 175,000 EVs from General Motors. Hertz claims that EVs are between 50 and 60 per cent cheaper to maintain than ICE vehicles. At the moment in Australia, you can rent a Polestar 2 or a Tesla Model 3 in Australia through Hertz.
4. All my bitcoins gone
One of the original Bitcoin core developers, Luke Dashjr, claims to have lost 216 bitcoin in a hack. That amount of bitcoin roughly translates to about $5,310,767.16 in Australian dollars. Dashjr went on to tag the FBI and plead for help and claimed that the hack also involved a two-factor authentication bypass. Web3 is going great and we assume it’ll go just as great in 2023.
PSA: My PGP key is compromised, and at least many of my bitcoins stolen. I have no idea how. Help please. #Bitcoin
— @LukeDashjr@BitcoinHackers.org on Mastodon (@LukeDashjr) January 1, 2023
5. NASA considers SpaceX role in emergency astronaut return
It’s possible that NASA might involve SpaceX in the recovery of astronauts from the International Space Station. In a statement from last year (aren’t I funny), NASA said that it reached out to SpaceX to discuss its capability to return additional crew members aboard the Dragon spacecraft to Earth. In November, the Russian Soyuz capsule sprung a leak, leaving its ability to return astronauts to Earth in doubt.
BONUS ITEM: Sulemana Abdul Samed is reportedly the new tallest man in the world, standing at a gigantic 9 feet and 6 inches.
The Ghanaian giant reported to be the world’s tallest man https://t.co/sHnuugsLZo
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) January 2, 2023
Have a wonderful day and, considering it’s our first five things of the year, a wonderful year.