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Category: transportation – Page 92

Swiss startup unveils the world’s first hydrogen VTOL jet

Swiss startup Sirius Aviation has unveiled what it says is the world’s first hydrogen VTOL (vertical take off and landing) aircraft — and an ambitious plan to have it in the air by 2025.

The challenge: Electric VTOLs (eVTOLs) are widely promoted as the next big thing in aviation, and dozens of companies developing their own versions of the vehicles — fleets of flying electric taxis planned to zip around cities and over traffic jams.

Like helicopters, eVTOLs can lift off and land without a runway, which means they can operate without airports or runways.

Another Tesla Optimus robot walking video just dropped on X

Elon Musk has shared a new video on X of Tesla’s incredible Optimus robot taking a casual stroll around Tesla’s laboratory. Since being published on Saturday, February 24, the 1-minute and 18-second clip has garnered much attention, with almost 79 million views in a few days (at the time of writing).

The clip shows Optimus in a more complete aesthetic than previously released videos. It also shows how mobile the robot truly is. However, as other commentators have said, Tesla’s Optimus’ progress would have been impressive only a few years ago but lags behind other efforts like those by Boston Dynamics.

Electrification Leads To All-Wheel-Drive Dominance

When analyzing the all-electric vehicle (EV) market, we have noticed that the segment shifted towards all-wheel-drive (AWD) powertrains. The front-wheel-drive (FWD) and rear-wheel-drive (RWD) models are in the minority.

It wasn’t always like that though. Between 2010 and 2013, there were only single-motor FWD and RWD models on the market. Things changed in the 2014 model year when Tesla introduced a dual-motor AWD version of the Model S (85D).

In the 2015 model year, Tesla expanded the dual-motor family to a few versions (about a quarter of all versions on the market, at the time), and then doubled the AWD lineup with the newly launched Model X in the 2016 model year.

A Cool Setup for Earthquake Simulations Based on UE5 & Gyroscopes

Real-Time Artist and Unreal Engine specialist Ayoub Attache, known to many for his jaw-dropping experiments with Epic Games’ game creation tool, has once again blurred the line between the digital realm and real life with a brand-new project.

This time, he has developed an incredible setup for simulating earthquakes in Unreal Engine 5 by simply shaking a smartphone attached to a cutting board surrounded by RC car shock absorbers, which mimic the ground’s movement. The shaking data, including acceleration and gyroscope readings, is then sent via a UDP server straight to Unreal Engine, where it simulates an earthquake affecting a construction site.

Vacuum Trains

And other low pressure rail & maglev systems offer the possibility of ultra-fast and ultra-cheap transport on and off of Earth. Watch my exclusive video Topopolis: The Eternal River: https://nebula.tv/videos/isaacarthur–… Nebula using my link for 40% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Visit our Website: http://www.isaacarthur.net Join Nebula: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur Support us on Patreon: / isaacarthur Support us on Subscribestar: https://www.subscribestar.com/isaac-a… Facebook Group: / 1,583,992,725,237,264 Reddit: / isaacarthur Twitter: / isaac_a_arthur on Twitter and RT our future content. SFIA Discord Server: / discord Credits: Vacuum Trains Episode 435a; February 25, 2024 Written, Produced & Narrated by: Isaac Arthur Editors: Konstantin Sokerin Merv Johnson II Graphics: Allen DeMoura Apogii.uk Ian “LITE” Long Jarred Eagley Justin Dixon Katie Byrne Ken York Phil Swan Real Courte Sergio Botero Udo Schroeter Music Courtesy of: Epidemic Sound http://epidemicsound.com/creator

AI startup Magic is building a “superhuman software engineer”

San Francisco-based startup Magic AI just secured more than $100 million in funding to develop an AI software engineer, which it sees as a milestone along the path to artificial general intelligence (AGI).

The background: Everything we see and do on our devices starts as code, and traditionally, that code was written by trained software engineers. In 2021, OpenAI disrupted this paradigm with CODEX, an AI that can write computer code in response to prompts written in natural language.

CODEX became the basis for GitHub Copilot, a tool that speeds up programming by generating new code in response to prompts, auto-completing code an engineer has started writing, and more. This can speed up programming by an average of 55%, and more than a million developers have used GitHub Copilot since its release in 2022.

Google gives Android the AI treatment at MWC

Google’s Gemini implementation for AI image generation is facing a lot of criticism. But that isn’t stopping the search and mobile giant from riding the AI wave and rolling it out to more of its services. Today, Google announced a new set of features for phones, cars, and wearables — using Gemini to craft messages, AI-generated captions for images, summarizing texts through AI for Android Auto, along with access to passes on Wear OS.

The new features were unveiled at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona — an event where Google, as the company behind Android, has figured strongly for years.

The company said that starting this week, Google Messages will get a feature that lets you access Gemini in the app. The feature is currently in beta and only supports English.

Texas’s San Antonio airport will get a 420lb autonomous security robot

The robot, which weighs 420lbs, stands at 5ft 4in and travels at 3 miles per hour, is expected to make its appearance at the airport in the next two months, according to local reports.

According to Knightscope, the K5 is intended for outdoor use and features autonomous recharging without requiring human intervention. Features listed on Knightscope’s website include 360-degree and eye-level video streaming, people detection during certain restricted hours, thermal anomaly detection, as well as license plate recognition.

The city’s director of airports, Jesus Saenz, said that the K5 will be used to respond to door alarms at the airport and will be placed near doors with alarms that are frequently set off.

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