The Department of Justice is reportedly investigating whether Tesla has misled customers and investors by claiming that its Autopilot technology enables full-fledged self-driving capabilities. According to Reuters, the DOJ launched the probe last year following over a dozen crashes, including fatal ones, in which Autopilot was activated. Prosecutors in Washington and San Francisco are examining if Tesla had made unsupported full self-driving claims about the technology, and they could ultimately pursue criminal charges or seek sanctions. But they could also shut the probe down without doing anything if they determine that Tesla hasn't done anything wrong. Back in August, reports came out that the California DMV had filed complaints against the automaker with the California Office of Administrative Hearings.

Oct 25 - Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) is under criminal investigation in the United States over claims that the company's electric vehicles can drive themselves, three people familiar with the matter said. The U.S. Department of Justice launched the previously undisclosed probe last year following more than a dozen crashes, some of them fatal, involving Tesla's driver assistance system Autopilot, which was activated during the accidents, the people said. As early as 2016, Tesla's marketing materials have touted Autopilot's capabilities. On a conference call that year, Elon Musk, the Silicon Valley automaker's chief executive, described it as "probably better" than a human driver. Last week, Musk said on another call Tesla would soon release an upgraded version of "Full Self-Driving" software allowing customers to travel "to your work, your friend's house, to the grocery store without you touching the wheel."

Tesla is under criminal investigation in the United States over claims that the company's electric vehicles can drive themselves, three people familiar with the matter said. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) launched the previously undisclosed investigation last year following more than a dozen crashes, some of them fatal, involving Tesla's driver assistance system known as Autopilot, which was activated during the accidents, the people said. As early as 2016, Tesla's marketing materials have touted Autopilot's capabilities. On a conference call that year, Elon Musk, the Tesla chief executive, described it as "probably better" than a human driver. Last week, Musk said on another call Tesla would soon release an upgraded version of "full self-driving" software, allowing customers to travel "to your work, your friend's house, to the grocery store without you touching the wheel".

An artificially intelligent system has spotted a number of "anomalies" in space that could help us better understand the universe. Researchers hope the system can be used to spot far more such space anomalies – and help lead scientists to new supernovae and other extreme and distant objects in space. The new system is set to help scientists overcome the vast amount of data that comes in each day from the sky above us, picking through to find the most interesting and intriguing possible objects. In recent decades, astronomers have struggled in part because they have too much data: the advent of large-scale surveys of the skies means that scientists are gathering vast amounts of data each night. That means there are billions of potentially interesting objects lying in wait in catalogues to be discovered by scientists.