Did Elon Musk Create Bitcoin? A Former SpaceX Employee Thinks So

@ElonMusk is many things. A billionaire, a visionary, the owner of companies such as #Tesla and @SpaceX and overall one of the most inspiring and intriguing figures we have in business today. With this appeal comes a never-ending supply of rumors and fake news, from quitting @Tesla to join a #bitcoin startup, to being called national disgrace and thief. Given the meteoric rise of mainstream #cryptocurrency popularity, it should be no surprise that the elusive hunt for @Satoshi, often referred to as the father of Bitcoin, has led to the theory that Elon Musk has been hiding a big secret from all of us. Sahil Gupta, a computer science student at Yale University and former intern at @SpaceX, believes just this. Why Elon Musk Could Be Satoshi Gupta, who interned at SpaceX in 2015, provided a few “oddball” ideas on why Musk is the probable founder of Bitcoin: 1. Technical capabilities: Bitcoin was written by someone with mastery of C++, a language Musk has utilized heavily at SpaceX. Musk’s 2013 Hyperloop paper also provided insight into his deep understanding of cryptography and economics. 2. Passion for solving global problems: Bitcoin was founded in 2008, the year of the global financial crisis and widespread distaste of banking in general. If there was a time to create a currency for the people, without bank intervention, this was it. Advertisement: 3. Relative silence on the issue: Musk has only been quoted speaking about Bitcoin a handful of times. He has publicly stated that he does not personally own any Bitcoin and even published this sneaky tweet when asked about cryptocurrencies:  4. Musk doesn’t need the money: Satoshi’s stash of unused Bitcoin was estimated at $700 million back in June 2016 when the price of one Bitcoin was $719. Going by today’s price, Satoshi’s Bitcoins are worth over $8 billion – less than half of Musk’s current estimated net worth of $19.7 billion. Additional Supporting Arguments One week before Gupta’s Medium post on Musk, another Medium blog was published with a theory that Musk invented Bitcoin for future use on Mars. As radical as this may sounds, the point around Paypal in this article was relevant. Musk has already revolutionized digital currency his founding role in Paypal, which he sold to eBay in 2002. The author claims Musk is under a non-compete from this deal, leaving him to secrecy about his role in Bitcoin. Arguments Against This Theory 2008 was Musk’s “worst year”: 2008 was a notable year for Musk, who publicly claimed it was his worst year ever due to early challenges with SpaceX and Tesla and his personal finances and relationships in jeopardy. One could argue that working on Bitcoin was probably a challenge not even Musk could handle at this point. Musk lives in the spotlight: When the subject of Musk being Satoshi was brought up on Reddit in 2016, the Reddit community had a field day. Popular opinion is that Musk could never keep a secret this large and would have stepped in already to combat bank and regulatory attempts to destroy the cryptocurrency. Musk’s public statements can be negative: When asked about Bitcoin in this interview, Musk was notably careful about how he responded. Musk called Bitcoin “probably a good thing” but referenced its main use as a facilitator to illegal transactions. Arguments for and against this theory create a compelling topic nonetheless. Whether or not Musk created Bitcoin is yet to be seen, but it is technically possible. As Gupta puts it, even if Musk is not Satoshi, “thanks for the Tesla Roadster”.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cryptocoinsnews.com/elon-musk-create-bitcoin-former-spacex-employee-thinks/amp/#ampshare=https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/elon-musk-create-bitcoin-former-spacex-employee-thinks/

Tesla fires hundreds of workers as part of annual reviews

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- @TeslaMotors has fired hundreds of workers after completing its annual performance reviews, even though the automaker is trying to ramp up production to fill orders for its new Model 3 sedan. The Palo Alto, California-based company confirmed the cuts in a Saturday statement, but didn't disclose how many of its 33,000 workers were jettisoned. The San Jose Mercury News interviewed multiple former and current Tesla employees who estimated 400 to 700 workers lost their jobs. Tesla is under pressure to deliver its Model 3 sedan to a waiting list of more than 450,000 customers. The company so far has been lagging its own production targets after making just 260 of the vehicles in its last quarter. Despite the mass firings, Tesla is still looking to hire hundreds more workers.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.yahoo.com/amphtml/finance/news/tesla-fires-hundreds-workers-part-annual-reviews-162348850--finance.html#ampshare=https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-fires-hundreds-workers-part-annual-reviews-162348850--finance.html

Tesla is working with AMD to develop its own A.I. chip for self-driving cars, says source

#Tesla is getting closer to having its own chip for handling #autonomousdriving tasks in its cars. The carmaker has received back samples of the first implementation of its processor and is now running tests on it, said a source familiar with the matter. The effort to build its own chip is in line with Tesla's push to be vertically integrated and decrease reliance on other companies.  But Tesla isn't completely going it alone in chip development, according to the source, and will build on top of #AMD intellectual property. AMD shares spiked after CNBC reported that the company is working with Tesla. Shares of the stock ended the day nearly 5 percent higher and continued to climb after hours. View Related Chart On Wednesday Sanjay Jha, CEO of AMD spin-off and chip fabricator GlobalFoundries, said at the company's technology conference in Santa Clara, California, mentioned Tesla as an example of companies that were working with fabricators. GlobalFoundries, which fabricates chips, has a wafer supply agreement in place with AMD through 2020. In a statement, GlobalFoundries said the company does not comment on customers or potential customers, and denied Jha said that the company was working directly with Tesla. A more power-efficient purpose-built chip could help Tesla get closer to delivering totally autonomous driving. Tesla CEO Elon Musk promised this year that capability will be available to consumers in 2019.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/20/tesla-building-an-ai-chip-for-its-cars-with-amd-globalfoundries.html

Dell EMC Attempts To Address Multi-PB Growth Of ADAS

Autonomous or self-driving cars have sparked quite a bit of interest and debate in the last year or so. There are the potential benefits, such as safety and productivity on the commute. And potential pitfalls such as a hacker attack weaponizing the cars or the massive amount of the workforce that could be displaced. With the tech-car company Tesla Motors making headlines with their “auto-pilot” mode on their Model S to more mainstream companies such as Toyota and Nissan looking to make self-driving cars, the momentum is there. However, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) generate massive amounts of data that needs to be collected and analyzed, creating a new Big Data challenge.

With ADAS people like to think about the flashy items like fully autonomous vehicles though this covers much more ground such as Adaptive Light Control, Adaptive Cruise Control, lane departure warnings, traffic sign recognition, automatic breaking, and self parking. According to the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), there are six levels of automation (pictured in the chart above). Several companies are working through these levels as they focus on the final goal of self-driving cars. In the mean time, they are generating petabytes of data that needs to be stored and gone through to gain insights and speed up research and development.

As most probably know, having a car drive to a destination by itself isn’t as simple plugging in the GPS coordinates and letting it use Google Maps to get there. There are hundreds of issues involved including traffic, other drivers, weather, detours, accidents, objects in the road (even people or animals), and the map just being wrong. These are all things the human mind can deal with as they come up with the driver putting little effort into doing so. ADAS on the other hand needs to monitor sensors, cameras, radar, and light conditions. And as car companies look to move up in SAE levels they need to evaluate and improve their vehicles, some times millions of miles worth of data.

#DellEMC has been looking into this issue and have provided some interesting numbers to make one stop and think. For example a state-of-the-art front looking radar (FLR) operating at 2,800MBit/s and it may need to capture 200,000 miles of data. At 60MPH that is 3,333.3 hours of data, at 2,800MBit/s (or 1,260GB/h) that results in 4.2PB for one sensor, some cars may have up to a dozen. Again this is for one car; a company may have an entire fleet of cars about testing for SAE qualification. This data doesn’t even take into consideration the regulatory requirements of storing the data, which can last for years or decades.
Car manufacturers and ADAS supply companies need a large scale out storage for this data. Dell EMC’s solution is a large scale out NAS that is simple with high capacity, efficient data retention, and high availability. Of course this describes their Isilon product and the above research they conducted also makes Isilon a more attractive option for those looking to store and analyze the above data. While Isilon isn’t the only option available it is one of a handful that can handle such massive amounts of data.

Big Data is a buzzword(s) that has been tossed around a lot in the past year or so with no real clear definition of what it was only that it was some nebulous information that was extraordinarily important. Putting a specific set of parameters around the concept paints a better picture of not only what big data truly is, but the potential benefits that can be reaped by capturing and leveraging it. 

http://www.storagereview.com/dell_emc_attempts_to_address_multipb_growth_of_adas

Tesla and Panasonic agree to build solar panels in Buffalo, if SolarCity acquisition happens

#Tesla and #Panasonic have agreed to partner on the production of #solarpanels at a new facility in Buffalo, New York. The agreement, which is actually a non-binding letter of intent, is contingent on shareholder approval of Tesla’s acquisition of #SolarCity. The partnership, which was announced in a blog post on Tesla’s website, would see the photovoltaic cells and modules used in a solar energy system that works with Tesla’s Powerwall and Powerpack energy storage products — possibly the new product that Tesla plans to unveil on October 28th. Tesla and Panasonic already work together to build batteries at Tesla’s Gigafactory in Nevada. The new partnership would be an expansion of current SolarCity operations in Buffalo. "We are excited to expand our partnership with Panasonic as we move towards a combined Tesla and SolarCity," said Tesla CTO JB Straubel in a statement. "By working together on solar, we will be able to accelerate production of high-efficiency, extremely reliable solar cells and modules at the best cost."

http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/16/13302482/tesla-panasonic-solarcity-solar-panels-buffalo-ny

Elon Musk just blew up Mark Zuckerberg’s satellite

A series of explosions followed a test of one of #SpaceX ’s #Falcon rockets at Cape Canaveral on Thursday morning. The company was conducting the test ahead of its launch of an Israeli communications satellite — called Amos-6 — scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 3. #Facebook had acquired some of the satellite’s capacity to support its Internet.org efforts. SpaceX put out a statement confirming the explosion and said that no one was injured but the rocket and the payload — the satellite — were destroyed. “SpaceX can confirm that in preparation for today’s standard pre-launch static fire test, there was an anomaly on the pad resulting in the loss of the vehicle and its payload. Per standard procedure, the pad was clear and there were no injuries.”
http://www.recode.net/2016/9/1/12749196/spacex-rocket-exploded-test-firing-cape-canaveral?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWVdJNU1qTmxOMk5tWmpReCIsInQiOiJDQ0RCdVEyQWl4K0t5T3NXOHc3RkV2V1g0K0hIelFVOVpQOGRJMFhJUGVBQ0tZN3RORFZ2cEFndXlsUHNGV1lISytDTUY4Uk9wNkk5MXh2R094Wm96RStyMXVjam8rUXBjYk5WUmtQR3NCMD0ifQ%3D%3D

Tesla and Google Take Different Roads to Self-DrivingCar

SAN FRANCISCO — In Silicon Valley, where companies big and small are at work on self-driving cars, there have been a variety of approaches, and even some false starts. The most divergent paths may be the ones taken by @Tesla, which is already selling cars that have some rudimentary self-driving functions, and @Google, which is still very much in experimental mode. #Google ’s initial efforts in 2010 focused on cars that would drive themselves, but with a person behind the wheel to take over at the first sign of trouble and a second technician monitoring the navigational computer. As a general concept, Google was trying to achieve the same goal as Tesla is claiming with the Autopilot feature it has promoted with the Model S, which has hands-free technology that has come under scrutiny after a fatal accident on a Florida highway. But Google decided to play down the vigilant-human approach after an experiment in 2013, when the company let some of its employees sit behind the wheel of the self-driving cars on their daily commutes.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/07/05/business/tesla-and-google-take-different-roads-to-self-driving-car.html?referer=https://www.google.com/