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Category: business – Page 196
At 35 meters, the wingspan of the new BAE Systems aircraft equals that of a Boeing 737, yet the plane weighs in at just 150 kilograms, including a 15 kg payload. The unmanned plane, dubbed the PHASA-35 (Persistent High-Altitude Solar Aircraft), made its maiden voyage on 10 February at the Royal Australian Air Force Woomera Test Range in South Australia.
“It flew for just under an hour—enough time to successfully test its aerodynamics, autopilot system, and maneuverability,” says Phil Varty, business development leader of emerging products at BAE Systems. “We’d previously tested other sub-systems such as the flight control system in smaller models of the plane in the U.K. and Australia, so we’d taken much of the risk out of the craft before the test flight.”
The prototype aircraft uses gallium arsenide–based triple-junction solar cell panels manufactured by MicroLink Devices in Niles, Ill. MicroLink claims an energy conversion efficiency of 31 percent for these specialist panels.
Four years ago, Todd Rider was on top of the world. The MIT-trained bioengineer had developed a radical idea for killing viruses. Initial test results showed that his therapy, called DRACO, could kill every virus he threw it at: 15 viruses were killed in human cells, and two in mice.
It seemed like there was a chance it could be the biggest discovery in medicine since the invention of antibiotics. Enthusiastic headlines praised the potentially world-changing panacea. “Todd Rider Has a Kill Switch for Viruses,” wrote Bloomberg Businessweek. The Verge: “Killing sickness: is DRACO a doomsday device for viruses?” Time magazine declared it one of the top 50 inventions of the year.
Yet over the next few years, things started going wrong. Rider moved from lab to lab and says he couldn’t raise the money to continue testing DRACO, despite, he claims, the continued promise of the concept.
#Israeli-made transportation app Moovit is continuing its global expansion and now provides its #urban mobility service in a total of 100 countries.
Moovit uses up to six billion anonymous data points daily, the company says, “to add to the world’s largest repository of transit and urban mobility data.” In addition to its popular app, the Ness Ziona-headquartered company also provides analytics platforms to cities, transit authorities and businesses, enabling optimized planning and operations for residents and employees.
“Urban mobility is the lifeline to jobs, healthcare, and education, so we are so proud that in just a few years Moovit is now providing service to millions of users in 100 countries, helping them get from A to B with confidence and convenience,” said Moovit co-founder and CEO Nir Erez.
“We have grown drastically, from offering a consumer app, to also now licensing a multitude of MaaS solutions to cities, governments, and transit agencies. We are also glad to see the likes of Uber, Microsoft, and Cubic choosing Moovit’s high-quality MaaS platform to power their mobility offering.
This is a guest post by Mohammed Murad, vice president, global sales and business development, Iris ID.
The world is in the grip of a coronavirus epidemic the impact of which extends well beyond people’s health, including more than 1,300 reported deaths. The fear of this recently identified disease has closed businesses and grounded thousands of flights. The impacts have led to estimates of reduced economic growth in many countries.
While the virus that was first discovered in a Chinese province has killed far fewer people than influenza this year, the fatality rate has people worried. Influenza reportedly kills between 10 to 20 people per 100,000 infections each year. The death rate from the coronavirus tops 2,300 deaths per 100,000 cases. Those latter statistics change virtually daily as more cases of the virus are reported.
A Google AI tool that can recognise and label what’s in an image will no longer attach gender tags like “woman” or “man” to photos of people. Google’s Cloud Vision API is a service for developers that allows them to, among other things, attach labels to photos identifying the contents. The tool can detect faces, landmarks, brand logos, and even explicit content, and has a host of uses from retailers using visual search to researchers identifying animal species.
A BONKERS Russian billionaire claims he’ll make you immortal by 2045.
Internet businessman Dmitry Itskov, 38, is bankrolling a far-fetched plan to uploaded people’s personalities to artificial brains.
These “brains” can then be jammed into robots or holograms, allowing us to live on forever as artificial versions of ourselves, Dmitry claims.
Silicon Valley legends. Billionaire financiers. Patent attorneys. They’re all awakening to the massive potential of an industry preparing to emerge from darkness.