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Category: transportation – Page 408

Tesla is releasing a ‘Plaid’ Cybertruck, and it’s a Ford F-150 Raptor Killer

In what seems to be the automotive equivalent of a brazen act intended to show dominance, Elon Musk has announced on Twitter that Tesla will be releasing a “Plaid” version of the Cybertruck. Musk did not provide further details in his tweet, though there is little doubt that the feature will make the already daunting Tri-Motor pickup into something downright scary for its fossil fuel-powered rivals like the Ford F-150 Raptor.

Elon Musk’s Plaid Cybertruck revelation was shared on Twitter late Wednesday. While responding to Tesla owner-enthusiast and Third Row Podcast member Sofiaan Fraval, Musk stated that he would be driving a Plaid version of the all-electric pickup truck for personal use. This came as a pleasant surprise to the EV community, especially since this is the first time that such a version of the Cybertruck has been mentioned.

Elon Musk has mentioned in the past that the Tesla Cybertruck will have the handling and performance of a sports car, and this was highlighted during the vehicle’s unveiling event. Apart from showcasing its strength by having the hulking all-electric pickup pull a Ford F-150 like a rag doll, Tesla also featured the Cybertruck drag racing a Porsche 911, and crushing the iconic sports car in the process. These are bold demonstrations, and each was met with equal parts excitement and skepticism from the auto community.

DoD’s longest-serving employee passes away after 77 years of service

Sarkis Tatigian joined the Navy in 1942. He’s been there ever since, until his death this week at the age of 96.

Tatigian — who first enlisted as a radio inspector at the now-defunct Philadelphia Naval Shipyard — went on to become the small business advocate at Naval Sea Systems Command. He had held that title since 1979, six years after he first became eligible for retirement. But he’d been working on the Navy’s small business programs since 1951, two years before the Small Business Administration even existed.

Even well into his 90s, Tatigian reportedly commuted to work at the Washington Navy Yard via public transit every day. When we last spoke to him in late 2017, he had only taken one vacation day that year.

NASA reveals its plan for ‘Artemis Base Camp’ on the moon

NASA has released a detailed plan for an ‘Artemis Base Camp’ that will be home to first woman and next man on the moon in 2024.

The 13-page document highlights elements such as a terrain vehicle for transporting the astronauts around the landing zone, a permanent habit and a mobility platform to travel across the lunar surface.

The plans suggest a crew of four astronauts would call the moon home for a week at a time, but also describes accommodations with water, waste disposal systems and radiation shields if their time is extended.

The Future is Now | Life after Artificial Intelligence

These days, neural networks, deep learning and all types of sensors allow AI to be used in healthcare, to operate self-driving cars and to tweak our photos on Instagram.

In the #future, the ability to learn, to emulate the creative process and to self-organize may give rise to previously unimagined opportunities and unprecedented threats.

When 20 years ago, a computer beat a human at chess, it marked the dawn of Artificial Intelligence, as we know it.
These days, neural networks, deep learning and all types of sensors allow AI to be used in healthcare, to operate self-driving cars and to tweak our photos on Instagram.
In the #future, the ability to learn, to emulate the creative process and to self-organize may give rise to previously unimagined opportunities and unprecedented threats.

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AI techniques used to improve battery health and safety

Researchers have designed a machine learning method that can predict battery health with 10x higher accuracy than current industry standard, which could aid in the development of safer and more reliable batteries for electric vehicles and consumer electronics.

The researchers, from Cambridge and Newcastle Universities, have designed a new way to monitor batteries by sending electrical pulses into them and measuring the response. The measurements are then processed by a to predict the ’s health and useful lifespan. Their method is non-invasive and is a simple add-on to any existing battery system. The results are reported in the journal Nature Communications.

Predicting the state of health and the remaining useful lifespan of lithium-ion batteries is one of the big problems limiting widespread adoption of : it’s also a familiar annoyance to mobile phone users. Over time, battery performance degrades via a complex network of subtle chemical processes. Individually, each of these processes doesn’t have much of an effect on battery performance, but collectively they can severely shorten a battery’s performance and lifespan.

Three Questions that Keep Me Up at Night

A Google interview candidate recently asked me: “What are three big science questions that keep you up at night?” This was a great question because one’s answer reveals so much about one’s intellectual interests — here are mine:

Q1: Can we imitate “thinking” from only observing behavior?

Suppose you have a large fleet of autonomous vehicles with human operators driving them around diverse road conditions. We can observe the decisions made by the human, and attempt to use imitation learning algorithms to map robot observations to the steering decisions that the human would take.

Mayo Clinic starts using autonomous vehicles to deliver coronavirus tests and medical supplies

The Mayo Clinic today announced a partnership with Bestmile and the Jacksonville Transportation Authority (JTA) to deploy autonomous shuttles that transport medical equipment and COVID-19 tests collected at the hospital’s drive-thru testing site. The hope is that they’ll expedite the delivery of much-needed supplies while reducing the risk of human exposure to the coronavirus.

On March 30, the Mayo Clinic says its branch in Florida began using four shuttles from suppliers Beep and Navya to transport COVID-19 tests from the testing site to a processing laboratory on the hospital’s campus. (Beep transported three shuttles from Lake Nona, outside of Orlando, which JTA supplemented with an additional shuttle from an ongoing autonomous vehicle program.) COVID-19 test samples are stored in secure containers prior to Mayo Clinic staff loading the contents onto the shuttle, which then takes routes isolated from pedestrians and traffic while Mayo Clinic, Beep, and JTA personnel monitor them from a mobile command center.

We aren’t just stopping coronavirus. We’re building a new world

Can we build a better world with the lessons learned around this pandemic?

There is discussion that globalism will give way to community resilience and local digital manufacture, storage and transportation to provide abundant resources for normal and unanticipated needs.

#CommunityResilience #CommunityResourceCentres

We must pressure our leaders to take the long view in any coronavirus economic recovery package, even if this feels like a short-term emergency.