Lifeboat Foundation

In recent years, engineers have been trying to develop more effective sensors and tools to monitor indoor environments. Serving as the foundation of these tools, indoor positioning systems automatically determine the position of objects with high accuracy and low latency, enabling emerging Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications, such as robots, autonomous driving, VR/AR, etc.

A team of researchers recently created CurveLight, an accurate and efficient light positioning system. Their technology, described in a paper presented at ACM’s SenSys 2021 Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems, could be used to enhance the performance of autonomous vehicles, robots and other advanced technologies.

“In CurveLight, the signal transmitter includes an infrared LED, covered by a hemispherical and rotatable shade,” Zhimeng Yin, one of the researchers who developed the system at City University of Hong Kong, told TechXplore. “The receiver detects the light signals with a photosensitive diode. When the shade is rotating, the transmitter generates a unique sequence of light signals for each point in the covered space.”

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It turns out that “nothing” is one of the most interesting somethings in all of physics. Signup for your free trial to The Great Courses Plus here: http://ow.ly/OOOp30beNyt.

Continue reading “The Nature of Nothing | Space Time” »

Elon Musk has announced a new timeframe for his massive Mars project, and it is a lot closer than you would believe.

In an article published Monday, Musk said, ‘I’ll be surprised if we’re not landing on Mars within five years.

Musk, the 50-year-old SpaceX founder and CEO who was selected Time’s Person of the Year, has grandiose ambitions for Mars: a self-sustaining metropolis with solar-powered hydroponic fields where people may live indefinitely, 34 million miles from Earth.

Engineers are developing the crucial hardware needed for a series of daring space missions that will be carried out in the coming decade.

Testing has already begun on what would be the most sophisticated endeavor ever attempted at the Red Planet: bringing rock and sediment samples from Mars.

Continue reading “NASA Begins Testing Robotics for Daring Space Mission To Bring First Samples Back From Mars” »

This is the closest encounter between our species and the Sun ever.

NASA announced that the Parker Solar Probe went into the Sun’s atmosphere, the closest encounter with our home star.

Wasn’t it science-fiction writer, futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host, Arthur C. Clarke, who said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic?” Yes, in fact, it was! And the same is true today! Technology is magic! And the great thing about living in the future is we get to reap the benefits of all this technological advancement. Who doesn’t want lazer-precise internet? Why not take a vacation in outer space? Where is the driverless car taking us? These are the questions we face when we take a look at the future — up close… 15 Emerging Technologies That Will Change Our World.

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A lunar rock brought to Earth nearly half a century ago is revealing new information about the moon’s complex history.

NASA’s Apollo 17 mission left the moon to return to Earth 49 years ago Tuesday (Dec. 14) and humanity hasn’t been back to our natural satellite since. In a new study, researchers examined a moon rock collected by astronauts during Apollo 17. By measuring the composition of the rock, designated “troctolite 76535,” scientists have found patterns that point to a 20-million-year cooling period during the moon’s history, defying previous understanding of lunar evolution.

For the first time in history, a spacecraft has touched the Sun. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has now flown through the Sun’s upper atmosphere – the corona – and sampled particles and magnetic fields there.

Scientists aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have used magnetism as a gravity replacement in a biomanufacturing device that can make human cartilage tissue out of individual cells. The researchers say this isn’t just the first time a complex material has been assembled—it also represents an entire new field using magnets to “levitate” materials in zero-gravity environments.

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