Lifeboat Foundation

So at this year’s Connect, which kicks off at 10 AM PT tomorrow with a keynote from Zuckerberg, the stakes feel even higher. And we still have a lot of questions about what it really means to be a “metaverse company.”

It’s perhaps the most obvious issue, but in the nearly a year since Zuckerberg first attempted to articulate what a metaverse is, it’s still not very clear. Last year, Zuckerberg described it as “an embodied internet where you’re in the experience, not just looking at it.” The company’s website currently says the metaverse is “the next evolution in social connection and the successor to the mobile internet.”

But what those words mean to most people is fuzzy at best. “Outside of early adopters and tech-savvy people, there’s still confusion as to what is the metaverse and what we’re going to be doing with it,” says Carolina Milanesi, a consumer analyst with Creative Strategies.

From superfast magnetic levitation trains and computer chips to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines and particle accelerators, superconductors are electrifying various aspects of our life. Superconductivity is an interesting property that allows materials to transfer moving charges without any resistance, below a certain critical point. This implies that superconducting materials can transfer electrical energy in a highly efficient manner without loss in the form of heat, unlike many conventional conductors.

Almost two decades ago scientists discovered superconductivity in a new material —magnesium diboride, or MgB₂. There has been a resurgence in the of popularity MgB₂ due to its low cost, superior superconducting abilities, high critical current density (which means that compared to other materials, MgB₂ remains a semiconductor even when larger amounts of electric current is passed through it), and trapped magnetic fields arising from strong pinning of the vortices—which are cylindrical current loops or tubes of magnetic flux that penetrate a superconductor.

The intermetallic MgB₂ also allows adjustability of its properties. For instance, the critical current density values (J_c) of MgB₂ can be improved by decreasing the grain size and increasing the number of grain boundaries. Such adjustability is not observed in conventional layered superconductors.

Les Johnson, author of the new book A Traveler’s Guide to the Stars, talked to WIRED about solar sails and more ways to get farther into the final frontier.

Drawing just 100µW of power and small enough for in-ear earbud use, this TInyML chip family can pull clear speech from the noisiest feeds.

A set of genetically-inherited molecules found in every cell of every organism. These differences have …

Live biological neurons show more about how a brain works than AI ever will.

Scientists have shown for the first time that 800,000 brain cells living in a dish can perform goal-directed tasks. In this case, they played the simple tennis-like computer game, Pong. The results of the Melbourne-led study are published today (October 12) in the journal Neuron.

Now the researchers are going to investigate what happens when their DishBrain is affected by medicines and alcohol.

A New Zealand research institute and U.S. commercial firm Nanoracks are combining to send a superconducting magnet technology demonstrator to the International Space Station to test a novel type of space propulsion.

The Paihau—Robinson Research Institute intends to test a type of electric space thruster known as applied-field magneto plasma dynamic (AF-MPD) thrusters which uses high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnet technology developed by the institute.

Greece was entirely powered by renewables for the first time in its history last week, according to the country’s independent power transmission operator (IPTO).

On Friday (7 October), for a period of around five hours, the country was running off entirely renewable power, reaching a record high of 3,106MWh at eight o’clock (GMT).

“For the first time in the history of the Greek electricity system, the demand was covered 100% from renewable energy sources,” its IPTO wrote.

Tesla has updated its in-car energy app to give a comparison between real energy use and the projected range, and it even gives you range advice to get closer to the optimal range.

Range calculations are difficult regardless of the type of powertrain – electric or internal combustion engine.

There are just so many factors that can affect the efficiency of a vehicle on a road that it is hard to determine how far it can go on a full battery pack or tank of gas.