Why Hypersonix is one of the few talking about passenger hypersonic travel even though it’s building mini demonstrators and defense vehicles.
Category: transportation
The Intelligence Foundation Model Could Be The Bridge To Human Level AI
Cai Borui and Zhao Yao from Deakin University (Australia) presented a concept that they believe will bridge the gap between modern chatbots and general-purpose AI. Their proposed “Intelligence Foundation Model” (IFM) shifts the focus of AI training from merely learning surface-level data patterns to mastering the universal mechanisms of intelligence itself. By utilizing a biologically inspired “State Neural Network” architecture and a “Neuron Output Prediction” learning objective, the framework is designed to mimic the collective dynamics of biological brains and internalize how information is processed over time. This approach aims to overcome the reasoning limitations of current Large Language Models, offering a scalable path toward true Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and theoretically laying the groundwork for the future convergence of biological and digital minds.
The Intelligence Foundation Model represents a bold new proposal in the quest to build machines that can truly think. We currently live in an era dominated by Large Language Models like ChatGPT and Gemini. These systems are incredibly impressive feats of engineering that can write poetry, solve coding errors, and summarize history. However, despite their fluency, they often lack the fundamental spark of what we consider true intelligence.
They are brilliant mimics that predict statistical patterns in text but do not actually understand the world or learn from it in real-time. A new research paper suggests that to get to the next level, we need to stop modeling language and start modeling the brain itself.
Borui Cai and Yao Zhao have introduced a concept they believe will bridge the gap between today’s chatbots and Artificial General Intelligence. Published in a preprint on arXiv, their research argues that existing foundation models suffer from severe limitations because they specialize in specific domains like vision or text. While a chatbot can tell you what a bicycle is, it does not understand the physics of riding one in the way a human does.
Explainable AI and turbulence: A fresh look at an unsolved physics problem
While atmospheric turbulence is a familiar culprit of rough flights, the chaotic movement of turbulent flows remains an unsolved problem in physics. To gain insight into the system, a team of researchers used explainable AI to pinpoint the most important regions in a turbulent flow, according to a Nature Communications study led by the University of Michigan and the Universitat Politècnica de València.
A clearer understanding of turbulence could improve forecasting, helping pilots navigate around turbulent areas to avoid passenger injuries or structural damage. It can also help engineers manipulate turbulence, dialing it up to help industrial mixing like water treatment or dialing it down to improve fuel efficiency in vehicles.
“For more than a century, turbulence research has struggled with equations too complex to solve, experiments too difficult to perform, and computers too weak to simulate reality. Artificial Intelligence has now given us a new tool to confront this challenge, leading to a breakthrough with profound practical implications,” said Sergio Hoyas, a professor of aerospace engineering at the Universitat Politècnica de València and co-author of the study.
Security vulnerability identified in EV charging protocol
Southwest Research Institute identified a security vulnerability in a standard protocol governing communications between electric vehicles (EV) and EV charging equipment. The research prompted the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to issue a security advisory related to the ISO 15118 vehicle-to-grid communications standard.
Ethanol plant CO₂ can be converted into low-carbon jet fuel, study finds
Manufacturing sustainable aviation fuel with CO₂ byproducts of ethanol production could reduce carbon intensity by more than 80% compared to fossil fuels.
The CO2 released from corn during ethanol production could actually be a valuable, underutilized resource for producing aviation fuel rather than a waste byproduct, according to a study published in the SAE International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, Energy, Environment, & Policy.
Unlike the CO₂ from coal plants or cement kilns, which requires a lot of energy to capture, fermentation to produce ethanol releases very pure streams containing 85% CO₂ by volume or higher. As the corn plants sequestered CO₂ from the air, capturing the CO₂ released from fermentation and using it as fuel would reuse CO₂ without adding more to the atmosphere.
Rise of the robots: The promise of physical AI
A pair of swiveling, human-like robotic arms, built for physical artificial intelligence research, mirror the motions of an operator in a VR headset twirling his hands like a magician.
With enough practice, arms like these can complete everyday tasks alone, says Tokyo company Enactic, which is developing humanoid robots to wash dishes and do laundry in short-staffed Japanese care homes.
Welcome to the future of AI as it starts to infiltrate the material world in the form of smart robots, self-driving cars and other autonomous machines.
Water Lingered Underground on Mars
“Our findings show that Mars didn’t simply go from wet to dry,” said Dr. Dimitra Atri. “Even after its lakes and rivers disappeared, small amounts of water continued to move underground, creating protected environments that could have supported microscopic life.”
How long did Mars have habitable conditions for life? This is what a recent study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Planets hopes to address as a team of scientists from New York University Abu Dhabi investigated how surface and subsurface environments could have provided conditions suitable for life for greater periods than previously thought. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand past environments on Mars and what this could mean for finding life beyond Earth.
For the study, the researchers analyzed data from NASA’s Curiosity rover, which is currently exploring Gale Crater, a location of ancient water on Mars. The researchers compared data from wind-formed features called dunes, potential ancient groundwater and subsurface water, and analog studies in the United Arab Emirates. Dunes are widespread on Mars and have long helped researchers understand global weather patterns, specifically regarding dust transportation. In the end, the researchers found that dunes interacting with watery environments could be potential locations to search for life on Mars, specifically regarding how they transported water from the surface to the subsurface.
New Graphene Tech Powers Supercapacitors To Rival Traditional Batteries
Engineers have achieved a major milestone in the global effort to design energy storage systems that combine high speed with strong power output, opening new possibilities for electric vehicles, grid stabilization, and consumer electronics.
In a paper recently published in Nature Communications, the research team introduced a new type of carbon-based material that enables supercapacitors to store as much energy as traditional lead-acid batteries while delivering power at a much faster rate than conventional battery systems.
Robotics Company Builds Straight-Up Terminator
“I am kind of blown away that they can get motors to work in such an elegant way. I assumed it was soft body mechanics,” wrote another. “Wow.”
Iron made its first debut on Wednesday, when XPeng CEO He Xiaopeng introduced the unit as the “most human-like” bot on the market to date. Per Humanoids Daily, the robot features “dexterous hands” with 22 degrees of flexibility, a “human-like spine,” gender options, and a digital face.
According to He, the bot also contains the “first all-solid-state battery in the industry,” as opposed to the liquid electrolyte typically found in lithium-ion batteries. Solid-state batteries are considered the “holy grail” for electric vehicle development, a design choice He says will make the robots safer for home use.
New recharge-to-recycle reactor turns battery waste into new lithium feedstock
As global electric vehicle adoption accelerates, end-of-life battery packs are quickly becoming a major waste stream. Lithium is costly to mine and refine, and most current recycling methods are energy- and chemical-intensive, often producing lithium carbonate that must be further processed into lithium hydroxide for reuse.