Lifeboat Foundation

TOKYO — A Japanese flying car startup is eager to gain credibility with the public for its sci-fi-like mobility system by forging close ties with local governments and big companies in the western city of Osaka.

Tokyo-based SkyDrive, which is working on an electrically powered vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, signed an agreement last week with the Osaka municipal and prefectural governments to promote the industry.

SkyDrive hopes to use the 2025 Osaka World Expo to launch its mobility service, ferrying visitors around by air without the need for large-scale takeoff and landing facilities.

The challenge of getting high-quality real-world data.

Tesla is combining manual labeling, auto labeling, and simulation to create real-world datasets for fully self-driving cars.

Continue reading “Tesla AI Day 2021 Review — Part 2: Training Data. How Does a Car Learn?” »

A surprise result for solid state physicists hints at an unusual electron behavior.

While studying the behavior of electrons in iron-based superconducting materials, researchers at the University of Tokyo observed a strange signal relating to the way electrons are arranged. The signal implies a new arrangement of electrons the researchers call a nematicity wave, and they hope to collaborate with theoretical physicists to better understand it. The nematicity wave could help researchers understand the way electrons interact with each other in superconductors.

A long-standing dream of solid state physicists is to fully understand the phenomenon of superconductivity — essentially electronic conduction without the resistance that creates heat and drains power. It would usher in a whole new world of incredibly efficient or powerful devices and is already being used on Japan’s experimental magnetic levitation bullet train. But there is much to explore in this complex topic, and it often surprises researchers with unexpected results and observations.

The logo of Samsung Electronics is seen at its office building in Seoul, South Korea, August 25 2017. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji/File Photo.

SEOUL, Sept 23 (Reuters) — Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) is in talks with Tesla (TSLA.O) to make Tesla’s next-generation self-driving chips based on Samsung’s 7-nanometre chip production process, a South Korean newspaper reported on Thursday.

Since the beginning of this year, Tesla and Samsung have discussed chip design multiple times and exchanged chip prototypes for Tesla’s upcoming Hardware 4 self-driving computer, the Korea Economic Daily reported, citing sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

Porsche is about to turn its 718 lineup fully electric, diverging from the 911 which won’t go EV in this decade or maybe ever.

A few months ago, we speculated on Porsche’s plans to turn the 718 into a fully electric car. Now we have gathered additional material from different sources within and outside the company. Not only did we get confirmation that it will be a full battery-electric vehicle, we also gathered that it will be fundamentally detached from the 911—which, we learned, will retain its combustion engine beyond 2030 and may not even become hybridized.

Working with electric utilities is one of the more time consuming parts of building new charging stations, as quite a lot of infrastructure work and planning goes into building an EV station, as the local grid has to be taken into account in such projects.

But what if electric utilities weren’t involved at all, and a station could just be delivered on a flatbed truck with a forklift?

That’s the promise of a fast-charging station dubbed Drive Booster, developed by E.ON and Volkswagen that was just opened for use in Essen, Germany. The concept behind it is quite simple: Instead of drawing power directly from the grid, the charger has its own integrated battery, and draws power from a normal power connection found in any supermarket, like a soda machine or other large appliance. The charger can juice up two EVs at once at speeds of up to 150 kW, giving them enough range in 15 minutes to travel 124 miles.

Hyundai has already achieved this feat emphatically with the brilliant and much-loved Ioniq 5. It’s a car with more charm than just about every Hyundai ever made before it, and now comes Kia’s response. And I won’t waste your time: It’s absolutely brilliant.

Everything we admire about Kias of old remains with the new EV6: The pricing is competitive, the standard equipment is ample, the range, while perhaps no longer segment-leading, is more than enough for any use case, and the car is littered with small, thoughtful touches designed to make your life a little easier. But on top of that, and unlike the brilliant e-Niro, it looks fantastic, it’s enjoyable to drive, and the interior is exquisite. It’s comparable more to high-end e-SUVs like the I-Pace and EQC than the ID.4s and Mustang Mach-Es that it’s closer to in price.

Continue reading “Kia EV6 review — This electric car is out of this world [Video]” »

Israel’s Urban Aeronautics is the latest to enter the growing Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (eVTOL) airspace with an aircraft that, at the very least, has a pretty cool name.

The “CityHawk” has been referred by Autoevolution as the “world’s first wingless” eVTOL vehicle. The rotors of other flying EVs like the Volocopter 2X and New Future Transportation ASKA protrude from body. But the CityHawk’s “Fancraft” system features two, counter-rotating ducted rotors partially enclosed behind and in front of the cockpit.

FedEx Corp. and self-driving vehicle startup Aurora Innovation Inc. are launching a pilot program for autonomous-truck shipments between Dallas and Houston, with the companies announcing Wednesday what they called a first-of-its-kind partnership involving the two companies and a truck maker.

“This is an exciting, industry-first collaboration that will work toward enhancing the logistics industry through safer, more efficient transportation of goods,” said Rebecca Yeung, vice president of advanced technology and innovation at FedEx FDX,-9.12% 0 in a news release.