Lifeboat Foundation

An accessible rooftop that curves to meet the ground will distinguish the Hida Takayama University, which Japanese studio Sou Fujimoto Architects is designing in Hida City, Japan.

The private university, which is expected to open in April 2024, is set to be built on a rural site in the town that is located in the mountainous Gifu Prefecture.

Sou Fujimoto Architects’ design comprises two curved buildings that will be separated by a courtyard. The larger of the two structures will be topped by the giant accessible rooftop described by the studio as “an open hill”.

CATL warns investors its expansion plans may not keep up with demand and that advanced solid-state batteries won’t be commercially available until 2035 — at the earliest.

The rules that govern stock markets in China are different than they are in other countries. Recently, CATL, the largest battery manufacturer in China, revealed plans to invest enormous amounts of money to increase its production capacity. But first it had to convince the Shenzhen Stock Exchange that its plans were realistic and in line with sound business practices. In response to several questions put to it by the stock exchange, the company said solid-state battery development faces technical difficulties that will prevent mass production from occurring for a long time yet.

According to CnEVPost, CATL was asked to explain the development of technology paths for solid-state batteries, sodium ion batteries, and hydrogen fuel cells, along with the risks that each could pose to its operations and capacity expansion. Solid-state batteries and hydrogen fuel cells have certain technical features and advantages, but there are still unresolved technical problems and barriers to mass production, the company said.

Continue reading “CATL Warns On Solid-State Batteries, Sees Supply Shortfall Ahead” »

The FT reviewed hundreds of patent applications by Meta and found references to a “virtual store” where users could buy virtual products, as well as objects that correspond to real-world items that have been sponsored by third-party brands.

A patent reviewed by the FT said brands would go through a bidding process to “sponsor the appearance of an object” inside a virtual store.

Meta’s head of global affairs Nick Clegg told the FT in an interview that the business model for the metaverse would be “commerce-led”.

Could the University of Michigan’s lithium-sulfur battery be the breakthrough electric vehicles have been waiting for?

For enterprises that are looking to bring a zero trust approach as a way to better secure identities and permissions, leveraging advanced AI is now essential in order to achieve accuracy and scalability, ForgeRock CEO Fran Rosch told VentureBeat.

While traditionally, zero trust decision-making has relied mostly upon rules–for instance, rejecting a user request based on an impossible geographic location– ForgeRock adds in AI algorithms that enable far greater accuracy, Rosch said. This accuracy equates to dramatically enhanced security, he said–citing an example of a recent customer that increased its entitlement rejections by 300% after deploying ForgeRock.

“Because it was previously all done by these rules, and people were rubber-stamping these entitlement requests, they were letting these things go that they should never have approved,” Rosch said in a recent interview. “That was increasing the risk to the company. Because there were people who had no business accessing HR data, and no business accessing sales data, that were getting that information. So by leveraging the AI, a 300% increase in request rejections really tightened up the security of the organization.”

They claim that more than 100,000 passengers could be affected in a single day. 🤔

#engineering

Several high-profile executives of U.S. airlines warned on Monday, January 17, of an oncoming “catastrophic” aviation crisis that will take hold by Wednesday should AT&T and Verizon activate their new 5G services, a report from Reuters reveals.

Continue reading “US Airlines Warn of a ‘Catastrophic’ Crisis Caused by New 5G Services” »

In response to pressure from right-to-repair advocates, Microsoft has released a new teardown video for its Surface Laptop SE.

Circa 2019

NC State researchers created diamonds at room temperature in 2015 using carbon thin films. Now, they made diamonds using carbon nanofibers and nanotubes.

Such thrusters have been used since the 1970s; however, the Tiangong’s core module is set to become the first crewed spaceship propelled by ion drives. China is betting big on ion thrusters and intends to develop them on a far greater scale for its deep-space missions.

The space station’s core Tianhe module, which will welcome its first astronauts later this month if all goes to plan, is propelled by four ion thrusters, which utilize electricity to accelerate ions as a type of propulsion.

When compared to chemical propulsion, which keeps the International Space Station (ISS) in orbit, ion drives are much more efficient. According to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the ISS’s thrusters require four tons of rocket fuel to keep it afloat for a year, whereas ion thrusters would require only 882 pounds (400kg) to do the same.