Lifeboat Foundation

Mercedez-Benz has announced approval of their “Drive Pilot” system, in Germany, which does fully autonomous operation in highway traffic jam situations. Such systems have been promised for many years. It’s interesting to note that Tesla TSLA-5.2%, which might be able to produce such a system today, has instead put all their focus on their poorly named “full” self-driving product, possibly at the expense of other features like this.

The German certification is designed to be extended to the rest of the world, starting of course with Europe. Honda has sold a modest number of Legend sedans in Japan with this function, and Audi produced one but did not finish the regulatory approval process.

A system like this sometimes called a “level 3” system though those levels are misleading and not typically used by leading self-driving developers. It got that number as a potential half step between driver-assist (Such as Tesla FSD and other Mercedes offerings) and real self-driving. It was dreamed up by regulators with no experience in developing self-driving systems and there’s been a lot of disparate thinking about it over the years.

Work to drum up interest in pre-owned options are slowly starting to deliver an impact.

Rolls-Royce, the 115-year-old iconic British Engineering firm, has now achieved a new feat. After manufacturing world-class jet engines, it has left its mark in the electric aviation world.

Spirit of Innovation, a single-seat, electric-powered propeller plane built by Rolls-Royce, obliterated the zero-emission speed record, reaching over 556 kilometers per hour (345 mph) over a three-kilometer distance—and even maxing out at 623 kilometers per hour. This flight successfully smashed all previous records of electric planes which are environment friendly.

With a clarion call given by the COP26 on the need to cut emissions, Rolls-Royce has presented itself as a company that could earnestly provide that solution. With the aviation industry registering a record number of flights after a year of lockdowns, the emissions are set to grow further.

Microsoft’s attempts to steer Windows users toward the Edge browser are attracting notice. Can the Third Browser War around the corner?

Users of Microsoft’s Windows 10 and 11 operating systems have recently reported seeing unusual prompts when they attempt to download Google’s Chrome browser to their device, according to The Verge.

If Microsoft is indeed launching a third Browser War, can the mid-1990s be far behind? Men, put on your flat-front chinos or straight-leg jeans, women, put on a mini-skirt and knee socks, pop a disc with “The Macarena” into your car’s sound system, and head for the mall. There, Toy Story or Braveheart is playing, and you can stop by Starbucks for their new frozen Frappuccino.

Continue reading “Is Microsoft Launching a New Browser War?” »

While 1% of anything doesn’t sound like much, with light, that’s still really fast — close to 7 million miles per hour! At 1% the speed of light, it would take a little over a second to get from Los Angeles to New York. This is more than 10,000 times faster than a commercial jet.

Bullets can go 2,600 mph (4,200 km/h), more than three times the speed of sound. The fastest aircraft is NASA’s X3 jet plane 0, with a top speed of 7,000 mph (11,200 km/h). That sounds impressive, but it’s still only 0.001% the speed of light.

The price of the batteries that power electric vehicles has fallen by about 90 percent since 2010, a continuing trend that will soon make EVs less expensive than gasoline vehicles.

This week, with battery pricing figures for 2021 now available, I wanted to get a better idea of what the near future will look like.

First, the numbers: The average price of lithium-ion battery packs fell to $132 per kilowatt-hour in 2021, down 6 percent from $140 per kilowatt-hour the previous year, according to the annual battery price survey from BloombergNEF. The new average is a step closer to the benchmark of $100 per kilowatt-hour, which researchers say is the approximate point where EVs will cost about the same as gasoline-powered vehicles.

China’s new hypersonic aircraft based its design on an ambitious proposal that NASA rejected back in the 90s.

Over the past few years, different techniques have made it possible to improve the viewing angles of the cameras, taking advantage of extra functionalities such as lasers. This technology allows the device to track objects moving around corners, even when they are completely obscured from view. The device could be used for search-and-rescue missions or installed on cars to detect incoming vehicles.

Now, researchers at the Stanford Computational Imaging Lab have developed a novel method called non-line-of-sight imaging, or keyhole imaging, that allows you to scan an entire room by simply pointing a laser through the keyhole. A single point of laser light entering a room can be used to see what physical objects might be inside.

Continue reading “A laser shot through a keyhole can expose everything inside a closed room” »

As the spread of electric vehicles continues to gain speed across the globe, the electric charging network needs to keep pace with the growing demand. Tesla, the global leader in electric vehicles, has spent millions to expand its supercharging network and the company currently has more than 25,000 supercharging stations across the planet. The EV manufacturer is looking to democratize its superchargers, and in certain regions, you can charge your Porsche Taycan right next to regular Tesla offerings such as the Model 3 and Model S, but some have been experiencing an unpleasant trend in recent times: internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles are blocking charging stations. This act is known as “ICEing”, and it has become such an issue in China that Tesla has banded with its customers to come up with an interesting solution.