A new “common-sense” approach to computer vision enables artificial intelligence that interprets scenes more accurately than other systems do.
Computer vision systems sometimes make inferences about a scene that fly in the face of common sense. For example, if a robot were processing a scene of a dinner table, it might completely ignore a bowl that is visible to any human observer, estimate that a plate is floating above the table, or misperceive a fork to be penetrating a bowl rather than leaning against it.
Move that computer vision system to a self-driving car and the stakes become much higher — for example, such systems have failed to detect emergency vehicles and pedestrians crossing the street.
Tesla is allowing drivers — yes, the person behind the wheel who is ideally preoccupied with tasks such as “steering” — to play video games on its vehicles’ massive console touchscreens while driving.
“I only did it for like five seconds and then turned it off,” Tesla owner Vince Patton told The New York Times. “I’m astonished. To me, it just seems inherently dangerous.”
The feature has reportedly been available for some time. Given that the company is already facing fierce scrutiny for rolling out its still unfinished Full Self-Driving beta to customers, it’s not exactly a good look.
With the Zappi, Myenergi offers a compact charging station that can charge the electric vehicle in the garage or carport at home with solar power from the roof without any additional components.
The FlyZero aircraft is one of a range of aircraft being designed by the FlyZero program. The new concept will store hydrogen in cryogenic fuel tanks, keeping them at a temperature of minus 250°Celsius (minus 418°Fahrenheit). Two cryogenic tanks will be placed at the rear of the plane, while two smaller “cheek” tanks will be placed near the front of the plane to keep the aircraft balanced. The mid-size aircraft will have a wingspan of 54 meters, each of which will have a turbofan engine attached.
“These designs could define the future of aerospace and aviation,” said U.K. Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng in the ATI’s statement. “By working with industry, we are showing that truly carbon-free flight could be possible, with hydrogen a frontrunner to replace conventional fossil fuels.”
In its statement, the ATI estimates that “highly-efficient hydrogen-powered aircraft” will “have superior operating economics compared to conventional aircraft from the mid-2030s onwards.” The ATI has received £1.95 billion ($2.6 billion) in funding since it was founded in 2013. The FlyZero concept program, which received £15 million of that funding, promises to allow travelers to fly with the same speed and comfort provided by airliners today.
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The 279-seater could fly from London to San Francisco without refueling. A U.K. government-backed research firm, Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI), revealed a new liquid-hydrogen-powered airliner concept called FlyZero.
Formula 1 brakes are some of the most incredible pieces of tech on the planet. They’re able to haul a car doing over 200 mph down to walking speed in a matter of seconds, generating up to 5 g’s of force on deceleration. But how do they work? This video is a nifty explainer.
Scott Mansell of the Driver61 YouTube channel got his hands on a collection of brake system parts from an F1 car, and took the time to explain how each piece works. The first thing you’ll notice is that there’s not one, but two master cylinders. In F1 cars, there’s one for the front brakes, and one for the rear. They’re mounted on a pivoting fork that’s used to adjust brake bias, which is pretty genius.
The wild engineering behind this absurdly powerful braking system.
The tweet represents the first official mention of a quad-motor Cybertruck. Since the EV was unveiled in the fall of 2019, Musk and Tesla have said the tri-motor variant would be the most powerful variant. Although no horsepower or torque figures have ever been revealed, the automaker has promised its top-tier pickup would be able to zoom from zero to 60 in less than three seconds, tow up to 14,000 pounds and travel 500 miles on a single charge. One can only assume that a Cybertruck with an extra motor would be faster and more powerful, though its range might take a hit.
We know that the four-motor variant will arrive first and sit atop the Cybertruck lineup, but we don’t know if it will replace one of the previously announced models. It’s possible that the newly announced version could take the place of either the single-or tri-motor model.
We do know that having a motor situated on each wheel will give the EV at least two new features. In a follow-up tweet, Musk wrote that the quad-motor pickup will also have front and rear wheel steering, which would likely allow it to perform tank turns. It will also be able to drive diagonally “like a crab,” according to Musk. Notably, the GMC Hummer EV, a direct competitor to the Cybertruck, also has a driving mode called “Crab Walk.”
No multi-billion-dollar acquisitions occurred in the world of AI chips in 2021.
Instead, the leading AI chip startups all raised rounds at multi-billion-dollar valuations, making clear that they aspire not to get acquired but to become large standalone public companies.
In our predictions last December, we identified three startups in particular as likely acquisition targets. Of these: SambaNova raised a $670 million Series D at a $5 billion valuation in April; Cerebras raised a $250 million Series F at a $4 billion valuation last month; and Graphcore raised $220 million at a valuation close to $3 billion amid rumors of an upcoming IPO.
Other top AI chip startups like Groq and Untether AI also raised big funding rounds in 2021.
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As of the beginning of this year, no autonomous vehicle company had ever gone public. 2021 is the year that that all changed.
Quickly, tell me what you think a self-driving car looks like. Most people have not seen a self-driving car in the wild, so to speak, having only seen self-driving cars indirectly and as shown in online videos, automotive advertisements, and glossy pictures posted on social media or used in daily news reports. For those people that perchance live in an area whereby self-driving cars are being tested out on public roadways, they tend to see self-driving cars quite often. The first reaction to seeing a self-driving car with your own eyes is that it is an amazing sight to see (for my first-hand eyewitness coverage of what it is like to ride in a self-driving car, see the link here). This is the future, right before your very eyes. One day, presumably, self-driving cars will be everywhere, and they will be a common sight. We won’t take notice of self-driving cars at that juncture, treating them as rather mundane, ordinary, and all-out ho-hum. Right now, they are a marvel to behold. Full Story:
Ascendance Flight Technologies, based in Toulouse, France, has unveiled the striking design of its new hybrid-electric VTOL aircraft, ATEA, according to a press release.
The ATEA is a five-seat hybrid-electric aircraft that can perform vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL). The concept stands out from the rest since it has a tandem wing configuration with rotors incorporated into them, giving it a strikingly unusual appearance.
The concept is the result of three years of research and development, and it’s called the “tomorrow’s aircraft” since it reflects the company’s goal of assisting in the decarbonization of aviation: The aircraft aims to reduce carbon emissions by 80 percent compared to traditional helicopter designs.
