Fully Charged: Musk says cars will eventually be banned, plus PlayStation Now headed to UK

Elon Musk says cars will eventually be banned

Immensely successful tech icon Elon Musk sells cars as CEO of Tesla Motors, but he envisions a future in which the drivable cars of today are ultimately banned from roads. “It’s too dangerous," Musk said to Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang at the CPU Technology Conference yesterday. "You can’t have a person driving a two-ton death machine."

Musk, as you might expect, sees self-driving cars as the way of the future, but what of the couple billion traditional vehicles already out on the road? He says it’ll take at least 20 years to move people over to self-driving cars, if only because the current output of the automotive industry is about 100 million cars per year.

Although Musk has shared his concerns over A.I. in the past, he doesn’t see the same issue with driverless cars. “I don’t think we have to worry about autonomous cars, because that’s sort of like a narrow form of A.I,” he explains, likening the process to programming the first elevator back when. Still, we imagine some Tesla owners might grimace at his words after buying one of his pricey “death machines.”

[Source: The Verge]

PlayStation Now beta will hit UK in spring

PlayStation Now, Sony’s cloud-streaming service for letting you rent digital games on various devices, is finally making its way to the UK. The company announced that a private beta test will kick off this spring, and users can register their interest now. It’ll only be for PlayStation 4 at this stage, but when fully launched, the service will extend to other devices as well (like select tablets and phones).

The service makes it easy to check out PlayStation 3 games without needing that hardware, and you can rent games for a span, although the high prices have been criticized in other territories. Luckily, Sony has introduced an all-you-can-play subscription plan, plus anyone in the beta will will have free access to everything. So if you want to play a bunch of free PS3 games, see if you can get in!

[Source: PlayStation Now]

Chromecast now recognizes TV remotes

Don’t always have your phone, tablet, or computer handy to switch between play and pause on the Chromecast? No worries: the latest firmware update quietly added support for regular ol’ TV remote controls, via a function called HDMI-CEC.

If your TV supports HDMI-CEC (and it may not), then you should be able to use your remote with top apps like YouTube, HBO Go, Plex, and more. Check out this Medium post about it, plus there’s the original Reddit thread that uncovered the addition if you’re looking to dig a little deeper.

[Source: Medium, Reddit via The Verge]

First Pixels movie trailer

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Adam Sandler’s track record in film over the last dozen-plus years has been by and large abysmal, so it’s difficult to summon up too much enthusiasm for his next big-screen blockbuster, Pixels. But the trailer makes it look like it might have some nostalgic fun akin to Wreck-It Ralph, and if anything, that last segment is pretty great. Pixels is due out on 24 July.

[Source: YouTube]