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Tesla sets up semiconductor joint venture with Swiss auto chip company

Tesla has plans to ramp its electric vehicle production by a notable degree in the coming years, and with the company’s constant innovations, it would need to secure a lot of resources, from battery raw materials to computer chips.

In this light, reports have emerged suggesting that Tesla has established a semiconductor joint venture in Jinan of eastern China’s Shandong Province. The joint venture is intended to supply automotive chip and electronics solutions. Tesla partnered with Swiss automotive semiconductor company Annex for the joint venture, which boasts a registered capital of $150 million.

As per a report from Chinese tech publication ijiwei, Tesla holds a 5% equity in the company for now, while Annex holds a 55% stake, and the Jinan Zurich Annex Equity Investment Fund Partnership holds a 40% stake. It should be noted that the Jinan Zurich fund acquired Annex this past June in a $5 billion deal.

Robotics Breakthrough Builds Anything

MIT researchers have devised an algorithm using voxels robotics devices to build anything from houses to planes to cars and even other robots by using a grid system that transfers knowledge to determine when to build what, and when to build other robot builders. New Google Deepmind video game artificial intelligence develops agents that can talk, listen, ask questions, navigate, search and retrieve information, control things, and do a range of other intelligent tasks in real-time. New Non-invasive brain computer interface device transmits information through optic nerve to compete with Neuralink BCI.

Tech News Timestamps:
0:00 Robotics Breakthrough Builds Anything — Even Robots.
2:44 New Google Deepmind Video Game AI
5:25 New Neuralink BCI Competitor.

#robot #ai #neuralink

This Hydrogen-Powered Carcopter Is A Real-Life Star Wars Podracer

Now, there’s another flying race car concept in the game. French startup Maca Flight revealed a new hydrogen-powered flying race car concept at the 2022 CES and it’s remarkably similar to the podracers in the Star Wars universe.

A green flying race car concept

Called a carcopter, a portmanteau of the words car and helicopter, Maca S11 is designed for speed and sustainability. And unlike others in its class, it’s powered by a hydrogen fuel cell instead of a conventional battery. The company states that the eVTOL is priced at just over $900,000 and that it will be ready to hit the racetrack in 2023.

Tesla phones an ‘alternative’ if Apple and Google ‘boot’ Twitter, Musk responds

The business mogul’s opening up to more ‘free speech’ on Twitter may have ruffled some feathers.

Elon Musk might have just hinted at making Tesla phones (Tesla Pi) a reality if Apple and Google were to “boot” Twitter from their app stores.

“If Apple & Google boot Twitter from their app stores, @elonmusk should produce his own smartphone,” Liz Wheeler, a video podcaster, said in a Twitter thread on Friday.


Muhammed selim korkutata / anadolu agency/getty images.

The business mogul’s opening up to more “free speech” on Twitter may have ruffled some feathers, and the tech world is a buzz with rumors surrounding Twitter’s future in the Apple and Google app stores.

Human-powered aircraft: Gossamer Albatross made history

It accomplished this record-breaking feat in two hours and 49 minutes.

After aeronautical engineer Paul MacCready won the first Kremer Prize in 1977 for the flight of his human-powered Gossamer Condor over a closed circuit course, he decided to cross the English Channel by air on human-power only, according to a report by The Museum of Flight.

He thus built the Gossamer Albatross aircraft from the lessons learned with the Condor. “This light and fragile aircraft was pushed by a propeller connected through a series of gears to a constantly pedaling pilot,” explained an article in The Museum of Flight.

“A new class of ultralight designs which are characterized by low power requirements”


Using only human power to do anything is an amazing feat but this becomes exceptionally impressive when it pertains to flight. Aeronautical engineer Paul MacCready managed to achieve a human-powered only flight.

Depth of field and resolution-enhanced integral imaging display system

Depth of field (DOF) and resolution are mutually restricted in integral imaging (II) display. To overcome the trade-offs, we propose an II display system that simultaneously enhances the DOF and resolution. The system consists of a transmissive mirror device (TMD), a semi-transparent mirror (STM), and two II display units. Each II display unit consists of a 4K display screen and a micro-lens array (MLA). Benefiting from the parallel placement of the TMD and the STM, two central depth planes are reconstructed, which effectively enhances the DOF. Meanwhile, the resolution in the overlapping DOF region is increased to two times due to the interpolation of the light field information from two II display units. The impact of the distance between the two II display units and the TMD on the 3D image quality is analyzed. In geometric optics, a distance between the II two display units and the TMD is optimized to eliminate ghost images. In wave optics, a distance is optimized to eliminate 3D pixel gaps by exploiting the diffraction effect of the TMD. Both the geometric and wave optics are considered simultaneously to obtain a high-quality 3D image without ghost images and 3D pixel gaps. A DOF and resolution-enhanced II display system is developed, and the experimental results verify its feasibility.

Flocks of assembler robots show potential for making larger structures

The new work, from MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA), builds on years of research, including recent studies demonstrating that objects such as a deformable airplane wing and a functional racing car could be assembled from tiny identical lightweight pieces — and that robotic devices could be built to carry out some of this assembly work. Now, the team has shown that both the assembler bots and the components of the structure being built can all be made of the same subunits, and the robots can move independently in large numbers to accomplish large-scale assemblies quickly.

The new work is reported in the journal Nature Communications Engineering, in a paper by CBA doctoral student Amira Abdel-Rahman, Professor and CBA Director Neil Gershenfeld, and three others.

Binance deploys $1 billion to keep crypto industry afloat after FTX collapse

In the first court hearing for the bankruptcy case on Tuesday, a lawyer for the company gave a damning verdict of FTX and its leadership, saying the company was run as the “personal fiefdom” of Bankman-Fried.

Binance said the vehicle “is not an investment fund” and is intended to support companies and projects that, “through no fault of their own, are facing significant, short term, financial difficulties.” Zhao has said previously it is his intention to prevent further “cascading contagion effects” stemming from FTX’s collapse.

Binance said it anticipates the program will last around six months. It is accepting applications from investors to contribute additional funds.

Marvelous engineering of Voyager: The aircraft that traveled around the world without refueling

The flying fuel tank’s flight “was arguably aviation’s last milestone.”

Nearly 36 years ago, on December 23, 1986, pilots Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, designer Burt Rutan, and crew chief Bruce Evans earned the Collier Trophy, aviation’s most prestigious award, according to a NASA report published in 2013.

A 25,000-mile circumnavigation of the globe.


Contributed to NASA

This was because their one-of-a-kind, purpose-built Voyager aircraft embarked on a non-stop, unrefueled flight around the world, setting a world record that remains unchallenged today.