One woman has found the perfect solution for not losing her car keys: she implanted her key in her arm.
Software engineer Amie DD took the car-shaped key fob that Tesla gives owners to unlock their vehicle, and implanted part of it in her arm, which allows her to open her Tesla with her body rather than a traditional key.
She documented the entire process in a video as well as on the site Hackaday, you can get an excellent look at the step-by-step process there.
Essentially she took the valet card for her Tesla Model 3 and removed the chip from the physical card that allows the car to be unlocked. Then, with the help of a body-modification studio and a gentleman named Pineapple, she was able to implant that card into her forearm.
In order to make it safe, she had the card encased in biopolymer. She told The Verge that the hack works; however, her arm is still swollen where the implant was placed, which makes it so she needs to be very close to the vehicle for it to work.
I’ll record it and post it when I’m home from @defcon next week!! pic.twitter.com/qMo71MSycM
— Amie DD (@amiedoubleD) August 11, 2019
Amie says she’s ordered two more keys and plans to have a Tesla service technician come out to her home and show her how he pairs the keys to her vehicle.
Amie’s hack isn’t the only Tesla hack we’ve come across this week. Security researcher Truman Kain debuted his Surveillance Detection Scout at Defcon this year.
Kain’s hack essentially transforms the Model 3 into a surveillance bot that can spot, track, and store license plates as well as faces that it encounters.
To make it work, he essentially hacked into the dashboard of the Tesla Model S using the USB port on the dashboard and made it so the vehicle’s built-in cameras were being used as a surveillance system rather than to just detect the presence of nearby vehicles.
“It’s meant to be another set of eyes, to help out and tell you it’s seen a license plate following you over multiple days or even multiple turns of a single trip.”
Of course, there’s definitely a risk that the car following you every day might just be a neighbor with a similar work schedule.
BYD has launched the third-generation Qin Plus DM-i in China, and the first thing that caught my eye is its price. According to CarNewsChina, the plug-in hybrid sedan starts at 79,900 yuan, which is about $11,980. That’s an incredibly low price for a brand-new car, especially by US standards.
What’s even more impressive is the range. The Qin Plus DM-i can drive up to 137 miles on electricity alone, which should cover most people’s daily commutes without using a drop of gas. Once the battery runs out, the 1.5-liter engine takes over. Thanks to its 17-gallon tank and roughly 91 mpg with a drained battery, the combined range reaches up to 1,423 miles.
Apple won the PC market’s worst quarter, but that’s not the entire story. It won the race by stumbling less than everyone else.
PC makers shipped just 57 million computers worldwide in Q3, which might look good, but it’s a 21% year-over-year plunge (via Counterpoint Research). And despite Apple’s Mac shipments falling by 11%, to 5.6 million, its market share rose from 8.7% to 9.8%. How did that happen?
Update (October 22 23:54 PT): In response to our query, GM clarified that offline recording support is already available on eligible vehicles. Like Tesla's Sentry Mode, it requires owners to connect a USB drive to save incident recordings, which can be viewed on the vehicle's infotainment screen. The upcoming Connected Cameras feature will build on this by giving owners remote access to these recordings via the revamped OnStar app, allowing them to check footage without walking out to their car.
General Motors has announced plans to add a new Connected Cameras feature to its OnStar service starting next year, giving drivers a way to monitor parked vehicles remotely and capture footage of certain incidents.