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Vegans are already mad at Amazon for making Kindle Oasis’ leather cover mandatory

That didn’t take long – just a little over 24 hours after the Amazon Kindle Oasis officially dropped , the company is already receiving backlash about its charging cover, which comes in exclusively in leather.

A petition on Changerg is asking Amazon to add a vegan leather option for readers who are uncomfortable with genuine leather. The Kindle Oasis comes with the charging cover included, which leaves little choice for animal rights supporters to get a new, tiny Kindle with “months” of charge sans-cover.

In our hands-on with Amazon, the company told us that the leather covers will be available for purchase as an additional accessory. Since this is not yet available on Amazonom, it’s possible that the company is looking to add more variety – including vegan leather – before officially launching the accessory line.

Until that’s confirmed, however, the online petition continues. One small step for animal rights, one giant leap for first world problems.

[H/T Pulin Modi ]

(Update: PSN is back now) Sony’s PlayStation Network is down worldwide

Update: PSN’s status page says the service is now up and running, as of 3:30AM GMT.

Gamers across the world are reporting issues accessing core features on the PlayStation Network today, including online play and the PlayStation Store.

Sony acknowledged the outage on its status page , which is now showing that all services are offline with the message, “Our engineers are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible, and we thank you for your patience.”

So if you had planned on some afternoon gaming, you’re going to have to sit tight while Sony gets its act together.

➤ PlayStation Network Service Status [Sony]

Tesla unveils its $35,000 Model 3 for the masses

At an event in Los Angeles, Tesla today unveiled its latest electric car, the Model 3 .

The $35,000 vehicle is designed to seat five adults comfortably and can travel 215 miles on a single charge. It goes from 0-60mph in six seconds.

CEO Elon Musk presented the car on stage and announced that the company’s Autopilot 3 self-driving feature as well as support for its Superchargers (which deliver enough power for 170 miles in 30 minutes) will be available as standard.

For comparison, the Model S sedan has a range of 257 miles on a full charge, or 250 miles in its high-speed ‘Ludicrous mode’ — only a little less than the Model S’ 265 miles.

Although it seems small when compared to the Model S, Tesla’s latest car features plenty of storage in the front and rear, and can accommodate a seven-foot long surfboard in the cabin.

A little over a week ago, the company allowed owners of its Model S sedan and Model X SUV to skip the queue to book a vehicle. Meanwhile, Andreas Stephens waited 48 hours outside a dealership in Sydney to become the first one to pre-book his Model 3 by putting down a $1,000 deposit.

Musk noted that Tesla has already received 115,000 pre-orders for the car. The Model 3 will begin rolling out in the US around the end of 2017, and arrive in other markets, including Australia, in 2018. Orders are limited to a maximum of two per person.

Musk tweeted that Tesla’s entire range will be available in six more countries: Brazil, India, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, South Korea, and Singapore.

Tesla says that when the Model 3 launches at the end of next year, the company  will have a total of 7,200 Superchargers worldwide, or twice the number that it currently runs. By that time, it will also have 441 sales and service locations by the end of 2017 across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific, up from 215 at present.

You can watch the full reveal of the car from this livestream recap below:

With that, Tesla is poised to take electric vehicles mainstream. The Model 3’s price point – about a third of what the Model S and Model X cost – is much more accessible and in line with what car buyers expect to pay for a well appointed gasoline vehicle today.

Plus, Tesla is keen on expanding to more countries, including challenging price-sensitive ones like India. It’ll be interesting to see if Musk and Co. can usher in a new era of motoring across the globe over the next few years.

Oh, and Tesla might still have more to reveal about the Model 3 soon, as Musk’s tweet indicates:

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