The EV manufacturer is supported by a robust online community. But Elon Musk's politics and overblown hype about Full Self-Driving are turning some loyalists away. This month, Tesla customers erupted in outrage over what some called a " bait and switch " by the electric vehicle manufacturer. Initially, the company had offered to transfer the Full Self-Driving feature, which is now only available through a subscription model but could once be purchased for a "lifetime" fee that ran as high as $15,000, to any new Tesla purchased by March 31. The deal was most tempting for drivers already enticed by a new base Cybertruck model that cost just $59,990, a price that CEO Elon Musk soon clarified would only last for 10 days, leaving potential buyers a very small window to make up their minds. Then Tesla quietly amended the language of the FSD transfer agreement, stipulating that customers would need to take delivery of a Tesla by March 31 in order to swap their FSD from their last vehicle to the next.

A bicycle wheel with guitar strings, a touch-operated synth, and the "Demon Box" were just a few of the new instruments on show at Georgia Tech's Guthman Musical Instrument Competition this weekend. An open-source, touch-operated synth built to resemble a puzzle piece and keep accessibility at the forefront. A pressure-sensitive surface allows for polyphonic synthesis that can be triggered by hands, feet, textured fabrics, or even Play-Doh. Brand new sounds floated through a concert hall at Georgia Tech this weekend, as the 28th annual Guthman Musical Instrument Competition showcased an array of new instruments from around the world--and crowned one champion. Ten finalists, chosen from candidates who built all kinds of new music-making devices, converged in Atlanta, Georgia, to present their instruments to a panel of judges.

As the legal war over how to regulate prediction markets rages on, financial institutions are embracing the industry anyway. When Troy Dixon first suggested incorporating prediction markets into the electronic trading platform where he works, he was met with incredulity. "People told us we were crazy," Dixon, Tradeweb's cohead of global markets, tells WIRED. But after the company announced it was partnering with Kalshi in February, Dixon says, the mood changed dramatically. "We've been inundated with calls," he says.

'100 Video Calls Per Day': Models Are Applying to Be the Face of AI Scams Dozens of Telegram channels reviewed by WIRED include job listings for "AI face models." The (mostly) women who land these gigs are likely being used to dupe victims out of their money. "I can speak fluent English, I can speak good Chinese, I also speak Russian and Turkish," the glamorous, 24-year-old Uzbekistani woman explains in a selfie-style video made for recruiters. Angel had arrived in the Cambodian city of Sihanoukville that day, she said, and was ready to start work immediately. Those impressive language skills, however, have likely been put to use as part of elaborate " pig-butchering " scams targeting Americans.

Managed a perfect cleaning record, if you leave it in the water long enough. Basket is quite difficult to clean. Must be retrieved with a pole when finished. In an aquatic world dominated by robotic pool cleaners that mostly look identical, a company called iGarden has been that breath of fresh air you take after reaching the water's surface. The company's pool cleaners have always featured designs that feel inspired more by high-end automobiles than underwater janitors, and with the new M1 series, its gear is sportier than ever.

The secret to this acrobatic skill lies in an extremely flexible part of the spine that allows cats to twist in the air and land safely. It's well established that when cats fall, they're able to land perfectly most of the time, nimbly maneuvering to right themselves before they hit the ground. Now, researchers at Japan's Yamaguchi University have advanced our understanding of this extraordinary ability, focusing on the mechanical properties of feline spines. What they found, as detailed in a recent study in the journal The Anatomical Record, is that those sure-footed landings are due in part to the fact that a cat's thoracic region is much more flexible than its lumbar region. While a cat's ability to rotate in the air without something to push again seems to defy the laws of physics, it's instead a complex righting maneuver.

Who needs a supercomputer when you can calculate pi with a box of sewing needles? Happy Pi Day! March 14 is the date that otherwise rational people celebrate this irrational number, because 3/14 contains the first three digits of pi. And hey, pi deserves a day. By definition, it's the ratio of the circumference and diameter of a circle, but it shows up in all kinds of places that seem to have nothing to do with circles, from music to quantum mechanics. Pi is an infinitely long decimal number that never repeats.

Now I wish every smartphone had a built-in privacy display. Privacy Display is very useful. Some AI features are useless. Did you privately ask ChatGPT how to bring up nonmonogamy with your husband? Your commuting neighbor on the train snuck a glance at your phone, guffawed internally, and blasted it on X with a satisfied smirk.

Plus: A porn-quitting app exposed the masturbation habits of hundreds of thousands of users, Russian hackers are trying to take over people's Signal accounts, and more. The United States and Israel's war with Iran has now been ongoing for two weeks, and the bombs continue to fall. But many of Iran's missiles are failing to hit their targets. WIRED's team in the Middle East detailed how countries in the Gulf region are intercepting these weapons . Of course, the international conflict is not just happening in the physical realm.

Japan Approves the World's First Treatment Made With Reprogrammed Human Cells Researchers in Japan pioneered reprogrammed cells 20 years ago. Now the country has given the first-ever authorizations to manufacture and sell medical products based on the technology. Human iPS cell colony established from fibroblasts. Its actual width is approximately 0.5 mm. On March 6, Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare officially granted conditional and time-limited marketing authorization to two regenerative medical products derived from reprogrammed iPS cells, marking exactly 20 years since the creation of mouse iPS cells .