Tesla Recalls 54,000 Over FSD Stopsign-Rolling; Sony Buys Bungie; Google Messages Rolls Out iMessage Reactions; Tablet Shipments Down

There was some noise last month when Tesla pushed out its latest iteration of it’s so-called Full Self-Driving software. There was an ‘assertive mode,’ which allowed cars to roll through stops. Cnet.com reports that the NHTSA was not amused, and now the feds have issued a recall notice for 53,822 Teslas…including Model S, Model X, Model 3, and Model Y cars. According to the NHTSA, the beta software “allows the vehicle to travel through all-way-stop intersections at up to 5.6 mph before coming to a complete stop, if certain conditions are first met.” If you own a Tesla with the software, you won’t have to go in…it will be fixed with a free over-the-air update. 

Sony has opened their cash vault and dropped a sweet $3.6 billion to buy Bungie. According to gizmodo.com, this will get them a larger player base and steady stream of income from Destiny players. They could conceivably make that game exclusive on their platforms in the battle against Microsoft, but really can’t do so with banner game Halo, which Microsoft holds the rights to. Gizmodo speculates that gaming might not be the only reason for the buy…they wonder if Sony is contemplating producing a Destiny TV series or movie. 

Google Messages has started rolling out iMessage reactions in beta for Android users. 9to5google.com says the emoji translations aren’t spot on—for example,  the iMessage Heart becomes ‘Smiling Face with Heart-Eyes. The reactions…often called Tapbacks, will now show up as emojis instead of a text version, which frankly looks silly. So far, the rollout is limited, so you may not see them right away. 

Tablet shipments were off in the 4th quarter of 2021. That said, Apple continues to lead the market with a 38% market share. Appleinsider.com notes that Samsung is 2nd with 15.9%, followed by Lenovo at 4.6%, amazon at 3.6%, and Huawei with 2.5%. Every maker’s shipments dropped except Amazon, which was up 1.3%. Apple was off 8.6%, but Samsung took a 21.6% hit, with Lenovo down 25.4%, and Huawei off 13.9%. Some of the drop has been attributed to supply chain constraints.