You're reading: Tech Pick of the Week: Prospective Tesla owners, VR stream, and ransomware

Editor’s note: Tech Pick of the Week is a weekly compilation of articles that focus on technology from international sources. The selection was compiled by Kyiv Post IT reporter Denys Krasnikov, who can be reached at [email protected].

The New York Times: Tesla’s Model 3 already has 325,000 prospective owners

Elon Musk (L), the co-founder of luxury all-electric U.S. car maker Tesla, speaks at the StartmeupHK Venture Forum in Hong Kong on Jan. 26, 2016. © AFP

Orders keep rolling in for the forthcoming Model 3 from Tesla Motors, which said on Thursday that it had received $1,000 deposits for more than 325,000 of its newest electric cars.

The extraordinary response to the vehicle, which will not even be built until late next year, underscored the demand among consumers for a mass-market electric car that carries Tesla’s luxury-brand cachet.

Read more about Model 3 from Tesla Motors here.

Mashable: Finally, a camera that can live stream virtual reality

A man prepares to start broadcasting via Orah 4i, a virtual reality camera designed to simplify the real-time production of a full spherical 360-degree video. © orah.co

The medium of virtual reality is just beginning to blossom and developers are experimenting with how to take advantage of the technology. There have been first-person video games, immersive films, and interactive dioramas, but the worlds of live streaming video and VR have yet to really meet.

That’s about to change. The team behind VideoStitch, a program that stitches together multi-directional camera footage to create a 360-degree video, announced the Orah 4i, a camera that streams 360-degree VR video at 4K resolution to the Internet. You can watch the stream on any connected VR headset.

Read more about VR cameras here.

BBC: The ransomware that knows where you live

This picture taken on Feb. 4, 2016 shows a computer screen at the National engineering elite school of Bretagne-Sud cybersecurity center in Vannes, western France. © AFP

A widely distributed scam email that quoted people’s postal addresses links to a dangerous form of ransomware, according to a security researcher.

Andrew Brandt, of US firm Blue Coat, contacted the BBC after hearing an episode of BBC Radio 4’s You and Yours that discussed the phishing scam.

Mr Brandt discovered that the emails linked to ransomware called Maktub. The malware encrypts victims’ files and demands a ransom be paid before they can be unlocked.

Read more about Maktub here.

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