Starlink is upgrading its satellite constellation to rev up its internet service. The company launched 8,000 upgraded space lasers capable of transmitting data at speeds up to 100 Gbps.
On September 26, Starlink posted a look at the improved V2 Mini satellites, which will enhance the constellation’s speed, reliability, and reach.
“Our next generation Starlink optical space lasers (pew pew!) were launched to orbit on Monday,” Starlink tweeted on X (formerly Twitter).
Renewable energy grids need lots of energy storage – and EVs plugged into charging stations represent a huge, city-wide battery just waiting to help out. The Dutch city of Utrecht is about to pioneer a clever way to kickstart two-way charging.
The idea has been done plenty at the domestic level – where devices like Toyota’s V2H (vehicle-to-home) charging system can turn an electric car into a high-powered backup power supply capable of running your whole home for days at a time.
And people have been talking about it on a broader, city-wide scale since the dawn of the EV revolution; the same high power density batteries that makes EVs so quick to accelerate make them perfect for quickly sending power back into the grid to smooth out demand spikes.
Scholars at Carnegie Mellon University recently offered what they call a “High-Modality Multimodal Transformer,” which combines not just text, image, video, and speech but also database table information and time series data. Lead author Paul Pu Liang and colleagues report that they observed “a crucial scaling behavior” of the 10-mode neural network. “Performance continues to improve with each modality added, and it transfers to entirely new modalities and tasks.”
Scholars Yiyuan Zhang and colleagues at the Multimedia Lab of The Chinese University of Hong Kong boosted the number of modalities to a dozen in their Meta-Transformer. Its point clouds model 3D vision, while its hyper-spectral sensing data represents electromagnetic energy reflected back from the ground to fly-over images of landscapes.
The immediate payoff of multi-modality will simply be to enrich the output of a thing such as ChatGPT in ways that go far beyond the “demo” mode. A children’s storybook, a book with text passages combined with pictures illustrating the text, is one immediate example. By combining the language and image attributes, the kinds of pictures created by the diffusion process can be more subtly controlled from picture to picture.
The human brain can change – but usually only slowly and with great effort, such as when learning a new sport or foreign language, or recovering from a stroke. Learning new skills correlates with changes in the brain, as evidenced by neuroscience research with animals and functional brain scans in people. Presumably, if you master Calculus 1, something is now different in your brain. Furthermore, motor neurons in the brain expand and contract depending on how often they are exercised – a neuronal reflection of “use it or lose it.”
People may wish their brains could change faster – not just when learning new skills, but also when overcoming problems like anxiety, depression and addictions.
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Change in the brain usually comes with plenty of effort over time. Neuroscientists are working to understand how psychedelic drugs provide a shortcut that seems to rely on existing brain systems.
Following the successful launch of Spotify’s AI-powered DJ feature and, more recently, added support for AI-translated podcasts, Spotify now appears to be developing another means of using AI in its app: AI-powered playlists. References discovered in the app’s code indicate the company may be developing generative AI playlists users could create using prompts.
The additions were uncovered by tech veteran-turned-investor Chris Messina, who posted screenshots of code in Spotify’s app that refer to “AI playlists” and “playlists based on your prompts.” He theorized that creating these may be an option within the Blend genre, where the tastes of different users are mixed to create a playlist with songs that everyone likes.
Generative AI was the explosive breakout tech trend of 2023, capturing the attention of not only techies and futurists but mainstream audiences, too, with its ability to create seemingly human-like content.
With tech giants including Microsoft, Google and Meta pouring their apparently limitless resources into the technology, we can expect equally game-changing innovation in 2024.
Generative AI is an incredibly powerful tool that will play an important role in democratizing access to the transformative potential of AI. And I believe everyone needs to be aware of what’s coming in order to carefully consider the impact it will have on our lives.
Explore the future as we delve into the top 10 generative AI trends for 2024, uncovering ground-breaking innovations and societal impacts, from more powerful AI models.
Helsinki’s Callboats pioneers autonomous water taxis, aiming to cut costs, improve island access, and reduce captain shortages.
Autonomous electric water transport could be the answer to improving accessibility, achieving carbon neutrality, and addressing a shortage of skippers in the Helsinki archipelago. However, current legislation is a barrier to the operation of remotely controlled boats, according to a Helsinki Times.
Over the years, Forum Virium Helsinki, the innovation agency of the City of Helsinki, has accelerated various business ideas through its rapid innovation experiments. Successful innovations in smart mobility include autonomous transportation solutions like robot buses, drones delivering first aid supplies, and sweeping robot machines.
A fleet of five AVs will operate on a 5-mile stretch in the upend Jumeirah neighborhood.
Dubai is set to be the first city in the Middle East to start the trial of fully autonomous vehicles (AVs). On an experimental basis, the service will be carried by US-firm Cruise, which plans to initiate the services next month, according to.
Cruise and the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority signed a contract that designated Cruise as the only supplier of self-driving taxis and ride-hailing services back in 2021.
The UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has agreed to provide £85 million in funding to build what has been called “the world’s most powerful laser.”
The UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has awarded £85 million (roughly $103 million) to the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Central Laser Facility (CLF) to build what will become the world’s most powerful laser. The investment will support a major upgrade to the CLF, including the centerpiece “Vulcan 20–20 laser.”
UKRI
Laser for plasma.