Tesla Autopilot 8.1 is live. Sort of.

Tesla Autopilot Tesla quietly pushed out Autopilot 8.1 on New Year's Eve to a select group of HW2, or next generation cars, made since October 2016. Now the rest of these HW2 cars should be receiving the update in the next few weeks, with HW1 cars having to wait even longer. Musk tweeted the roll-out this weekend, but declined to respond with any specifics to tweets asking when HW1 owners could expect to see the update themselves. He would only state that they could see "many improvements to HW1 over the course of the year."

Microsoft Folds Too Now it's Microsoft with a patent for a foldable smartphone joining the ranks of Samsung and Nokia. The device pictured in the patent application shows a smartphone that folds open into a tablet, and the reverse. Here, though, there's a hinge in the center, which is not as visible in other brand patents.

Battery Extinguish Thyself Fresh from Samsung's reported discovery that bad batteries caused its device to explode, a solution: Stanford researchers have produced a battery that puts out its own fires. The lithium-ion batteries extinguished itself in just .4 seconds. Lithium-ion batteries are thought to be a fire hazard and are not allowed in check bags on airplanes. This research, just published in Sciences Advances, and may be able to help change how this kind of battery is treated in the future.

Nest Expands Smart home brand Nest is expanding its beat. Alphabet, which owns the brand, will now start selling Nest thermostats, cameras and smoke alarms in Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain, expanding its European presence. Pre-orders start now, and deliveries are expected to start arriving in mid-February. (Via TechCrunch)

Night Vision New thermal devices are more affordable, making the possibility of consumer use more tangible. Our first look at this new market is at Seek Thermal's Compact Pro.