Lifeboat Foundation

Across much of the country, the holidays were ushered in with strong winter storms, with every region of the country impacted by extreme weather from Christmas into the new year. The West Coast has experienced the most recent extreme weather with its third atmospheric river event in just three weeks bringing record rainfall and winds along the California coast. Buffalo, NY, is still digging out from its record holiday snowstorm and much of the Northern Plains saw record snowfalls just last week. The southern states weren’t spared from extreme winter weather with Florida and other parts of the southeast experiencing record cold temperatures over Christmas. While these weather events are all quite different — from heavy snows to rain to extreme cold — the one thing they have in common is the challenge it brings to the 1,400 utility companies across the country.

Extreme weather events are increasing, and utilities and customers alike are feeling the impact. According to Climate Central, the United States has experienced a 67% increase in major power outages from weather-related events since 2000, a trend predicted to continue as extreme weather events increase in frequency. With these most recent weather events across the country, on Christmas Eve alone, over 1.6 million U.S. customers were without power. The troubles continue now in California with nearly 196,000 Californians without power last week and more storms over the Pacific ready to move in bringing similar conditions.

Large utilities have been effectively using predictive weather analytics to prepare and pre-stage crews to help manage restoration efforts during major weather events like we just saw. But the majority of small to mid-size utilities still rely on traditional forecasts, severe weather updates and immediate impact assessments to make decisions around operations, safety and resource allocation. Recent advancements in technology, data modeling and cloud computing are making enterprise technology, such as machine learning for weather risks, more accessible to utilities of all sizes.

You might be rolling your eyes as you see the drone take off to the skies and hover over the Australian coastline, camera angled straight down towards the glistening turquoise water. “Another TikTok influencer trying to get the perfect shot,” you grumble to yourself. But if you look closely at the pilot, you’ll notice they’ve got a sign next to them that says “Keep Clear” in bright yellow and red letters. This is no TikTok influencer.

It’s an Australian surf lifesaver, using the above drone to spot sharks at the beach before they get too close to swimmers like yourself.

Continue reading “Can Drones And Artificial Intelligence Keep Us Safe From Sharks?” »

In December, reports suggested that Microsoft had acquired Fungible, a startup fabricating a type of data center hardware known as a data processing unit (DPU), for around $190 million. Today, Microsoft confirmed the acquisition but not the purchase price, saying that it plans to use Fungible’s tech and team to deliver “multiple DPU solutions, network innovation and hardware systems advancements.”

“Fungible’s technologies help enable high-performance, scalable, disaggregated, scaled-out data center infrastructure with reliability and security,” Girish Bablani, the CVP of Microsoft’s Azure Core division, wrote in a blog post. “Today’s announcement further signals Microsoft’s commitment to long-term differentiated investments in our data center infrastructure, which enhances our broad range of technologies and offerings including offloading, improving latency, increasing data center server density, optimizing energy efficiency and reducing costs.”

A DPU is a dedicated piece of hardware designed to handle certain data processing tasks, including security and network routing for data traffic. The approach is intended to help reduce the load on CPUs and GPUs for core computing tasks related to a given workload.

Apple Maps launched a new parking feature that provides users with parking options and availability near a specific destination. In partnership with the digital parking reservation platform, SpotHero, Apple Maps users across the U.S. and Canada can now get parking information for over 8,000 locations.

To use the new feature, launched late last week, iPhone and Mac users can search for a destination in the Apple Maps app and then select “More” and “Parking.” They’re then directed to the SpotHero website without leaving Apple Maps. Users can search for nearby parking and reserve a space using SpotHero’s secure payment options, the parking platform claims.

SpotHero also allows users to filter their search by date and time as well as parking spots with EV charging, wheelchair accessibility, valet services and more.

Updating CRMs after each call is an important task for sales representatives, but it means a lot of administrative work that takes time away from actually selling…

According to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is going to spend most of 2023 focusing on a brand new device — a mixed-reality headset that has been a work in progress for several years.

The new device could look like a pair of ski goggles, based on an earlier report from The Information. It will feature several cameras so that the device can track your movements in real time and see what’s happening in the real world.

Over the past few years, Apple CEO Tim Cook has stated several times that augmented reality is a promising technology. “I think the [AR] promise is even greater in the future. So it’s a critically important part of Apple’s future,” Cook told Kara Swisher back in 2021.

Microsoft has reportedly been looking at ways of integrating OpenAI’s GPT features into Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint.

Microsoft has been reportedly experimenting with building OpenAI’s language AI technology into its Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook apps. The Information.

Microsoft has reportedly been using OpenAI’s GPT technology to improve Outlook search results so users can find what they’re looking for without having to search using keywords in emails.

Continue reading “Microsoft is looking at OpenAI’s GPT for Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint” »

A research team using new methods to analyze data from NASA’s Curiosity, a rover operating on Mars since 2012, was able to independently verify that fracture halos contained opal, on Earth a gemstone formed by the alteration of silica by water.

The study finds that the vast subsurface fracture networks would have provided conditions that were potentially more habitable than those on the surface.

In 2012, NASA sent the Curiosity rover to Mars to explore Gale Crater, a large impact basin with a massive, layered mountain in the middle. As Curiosity has traversed along the Mars surface, researchers have discovered light-toned rocks surrounding fractures that criss-cross certain parts of the Martian landscape, sometimes extending out far into the horizon of rover imagery. Recent work finds that these widespread halo networks served as one of the last, if not the last, water-rich environments in a modern era of Gale Crater. This water-rich environment in the subsurface would have also provided more habitable conditions when conditions on the surface were likely much more harsh.

Researchers at Princeton’s Department of Chemistry discovered the first known de novo protein that catalyzes, or drives, the synthesis of quantum dots.

Nature uses 20 canonical amino acids.

Continue reading “Princeton Chemists Create Quantum Dots at Room Temperature Using Custom Protein” »