HAPPY APRIL FOOLS!

This morning Tesla Motors announced it is teaming up with Apple to design and release a special edition of Tesla's Model S electric vehicle that matches perfectly, the colored anodized finish of Apple's iPhone 5S smartphone models. This news puts an end to months of speculation surrounding a secret, behind-the-scenes meeting between Elon Musk, Tim Cook and Apple & Tesla executives.

"This partnership signifies both Apple and Tesla Motor's commitment to releasing products that its users demand as well as continuing the cutting edge design that both companies are known for," Tesla said in a statement. "Apple's expertise and assistance with anodizing has been paramount to getting this project off the ground. In late 2014, the first iPhone Gold, Silver, and Space Gray Model S vehicles will roll off the line, thanks to Apple's amazing commitment."

Mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets connected to the Internet open the door to home automation services, according to the Home Automation Study from The NPD Group.

The study found that 88 percent of mobile device users are familiar with current home automation devices, a full 10 percent higher than regular consumers. Furthermore, four-out-of five own a smartphone, tablet or some type of mobile device - and because of this, home automation adoption could continue to grow.

"Mobile connectivity has enabled products from programmable thermostats to home security systems, to be controlled remotely, thus increasing their appeal and utility," said Ben Arnold, The NPD Group industry executive director, in a statement. "Another key part to this growing industry is the app ecosystem which allows consumers to use one device to monitor and control multiple products."

Less than one week after two banks hit Target and credit card security service company Trustwave with a class-action lawsuit, the banks have pulled the lawsuit.

It seems Trustwave was inaccurately noted as a Target IT security contractor, which doesn't appear true - interestingly, the class-action lawsuit aims to try and expand responsibility of the data breach away from just Target.

"Contrary to the misstated allegations in the plaintiffs' complaints, Target did not outsource its data security or IT obligations to Trustwave," said Robert McCullen, Trustwave CEO, in a public statement. "Trustwave did not monitor Target's network, nor did Trustwave process cardholder data for Target."

It's been more than a year in the making, but Alessandro Ranellucci has finally released Slic3r 1.0 to the masses. For those not in the know, Slic3r is the default-slicing program that most 3D Printing enthusiast, such as myself, use to slice the 3D models we wish to print into manageable layers. Slicer also handles the hard-work of plotting the tool-path head, injecting control coding, and spitting it all out into machine-readable GCode. While there are other slicing programs out there, Slic3r is by far the most popular and feature rich.

Today Slic3r 1.0 stable has been released and it brings with it, a myriad of new features as well as support for a host of new printers and tool-heads. As always, Slic3r 1.0 is fully open source, and free to download, modify and distribute as you see fit, making it fully Libre / Open Source compliant. A lot has changed in Slicer 1.0 so I fully recommend that you read the user manual before jumping straight into use.

Slic3r 1.0 boast the following new features as well as many more.

It's been a few months since Google first released Android 4.4, and the updated mobile operating system is now on many of the current handset models out. As with any new major release, a handful of bugs have been discovered, and it appears that Google is aiming to fix them with the next update to the software.

Android 4.4.3 has been rumored to be headed to release for a few weeks now, and it appears that Google is closer to its unveiling that previously thought. AndroidPolice has discovered the unofficial changelog of the 4..4.3 build, and based on what it shows, the build will mainly be a bug-fixer. This is nothing new for Google, as it likes to keep the major changes and new features tucked away for major release updates. AndroidPolice has also posted a screenshot of 4.4.3 running on a Nexus 5, which could mean that the update is coming down the pipes quite soon.

Today SanDisk announced the addition of four new Enterprise-grade SATA SSDs to its CloudSpeed Serial ATA line of solid state drives. The CloudSpeed Extreme, CloudSpeed Ultra, CloudSpeed Ascend and CloudSpeed Eco Solid State Drives have been designed to deliver the best business-critical performance possible in mixed-use enterprise applications often found in today's business world.

"Organizations in every industry are turning to SSDs to meet the challenges faced by growing volumes of data," said John Scaramuzzo, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Enterprise Storage Solutions at SanDisk. "However, finding a solution that meets the performance and cost needs of your individual environment can be difficult. The CloudSpeed SATA SSD product family was designed to meet the needs of applications across the read-write spectrum, meaning organizations and server designers no longer need to make tradeoffs between system performance and cost."

The new CloudSpeed drives utilize SanDisk's flash management Guardian Technology Platform to become the first SSD vendor to ship a drive capable of ten full writes per day that has been built on a 19nm scale. This technology also helps the drives to offer the best value in long-term operation. SanDisk says that 90-percent of the world's data has been generated in the last two years, and that this rapid growth has "catapulted" the industry into the so-called "big-data era," and it will take new technologies like CloudSpeed to keep up with the demand of this boom.

When John Carmack left the walls of id Software for Oculus VR, we knew good things were about to happen, and it was a time when the thought of the world's largest social network acquiring a virtual reality start up were far, far from your mind. Carmack, the Chief Technology Officer of Oculus VR, has finally weighed in on Facebook acquiring the company he just joined.

"Titans" is a term Carmack used to talk about Facebook and Oculus VR, where he said: "The fairly rapid involvement of the Titans is inevitable, and the real question is how deeply to partner with, and who. Honestly, I wasn't expecting Facebook (or this soon). I wasn't personally involved in any of the negotiations - I spent an afternoon talking technology with [Facebook CEO] Mark Zuckerberg, and the next week I find out that he bought Oculus".

People have concerns, thinking that Facebook will be the end of Oculus VR - something that I'm going to write about in a few days when I get home - but Carmack has said: "There is a case to be made for being like Valve, and trying to build a new VR ecosystem from the ground up. This is probably what most of the passionate fans wanted to see. The difference is that, for years, the industry thought Valve was nuts, and they had the field to themselves. Valve deserves all their success for having the vision and perseverance to see it through to the current state".

Samsung has announced several new displays that will be launching in the coming weeks. The most interesting of them is the 28-inch UD590 display. This monitor supports UHD resolution with a native resolution of 3840 x 2160.

One of the coolest parts about that display is that it is affordable even though it has UHD capability. The UD590 will sell for $699.99. For the money, you get a screen with good viewing angles and a brightness rating of 370 cd/m2 and support for 2 billion colors.

It features dual HDMI ports and a single DisplayPort. Response time for the panel is 1Ms GTG and it has a stand that can be tilted for a comfortable angle. Samsung also has a number of other new displays coming that support full HD resolution ranging in price from $249.99 to $329.99. The UD590 can be pre-ordered now and it's unclear when it will ship.

You can bet that if your average action sports junkie is doing something crazy, they will have at least one camera in tow. You can also bet that most of the time the video of said crazy stunt will end up on YouTube. A kayaker named Dane Jackson took his kayak and a GoPro camera along with some friends to a waterfall in Veracruz, Mexico.

The team of people had to climb a cliff and drag the kayak up the cliff to perform the stunt. The drop from the river up top to the river below the falls is 60-feet. With the GoPro on, Jackson paddled off the edge and plummeted to the water below.

One of the coolest things about the video to me is that he stays on the water after dropping over the edge for a while and controls the kayak with the paddle as he falls down. At the end of the video, it appears that he ends up under the water briefly, but it's hard to tell if he is just swamped with water from the falls after hitting the lower river surface. With a fall from that height, I could certainly see the kayak going under for a bit.

If you are a fan of the Alien movie franchise with Sigourney Weaver, one of the masterpieces of science fiction, you may have been following the development of the newest game based on the film series. The game is called Alien: Isolation and it has Ripley's daughter as the main character.

Earlier this month a behind the scenes video turned up looking at the game and it got us very excited. The game has now been given an exact launch date when it will land for PS4, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS3, and PC gamers. That launch date is October 7, 2014.

That will put the horror/survival shooter launching during the spookiest month of the year. Players will have to fight the Xenomorph that is hunting them with scavenged resources and wits. This may be one of the coolest games to launch this year.