Mazda’s first electric car, the MX-30, is disappointing to many in the EV community due to its short range. Now, the Japanese automaker says that it is not so bad for buyers who also have a second car at home for longer travel. Mazda has long been a laggard when it comes to electric vehicles. […].
China has taken a giant leap forward in one of its most ambitious space programs. It has advanced its future lunar base plan by eight years.
China and Russia presented a detailed plan for a joint lunar base called the International Lunar Research Station, in June 2021, challenging a similar plan by the US.
On December 27, Chinese space officials revealed a revised completion date for the unmanned lunar base. It aims to set up the facility by around 2027, previously scheduled for 2035.
Kawasaki Heavy Industries announced the successful completion of proof-of-concept (PoC) testing for unmanned cargo transport by the cooperation of its K-RACER X1 unmanned vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft and delivery robot. The PoC testing was conducted with the aim of helping to solve societal issues such as labor shortages in the logistics industry.
In its Group Vision 2030, which describes the company’s future vision for 2030, Kawasaki specified three areas where it will focus its efforts: “A Safe and Secure Remotely-Connected Society,” “Near-Future Mobility” and “Energy and Environmental Solutions.” In the area of “Near-Future Mobility,” the company has been pursuing the development of unmanned VTOLs, delivery robots, and so on.
Kawasaki’s latest unmanned VTOL adopts improvements to an aircraft flight-tested in 2020. It is able to transport a 100-kilogram payload and is equipped with a delivery robot loading and unloading mechanism.
Recent advances in quantum computing show progress, but not enough to live up to years of hyperbole. An emerging view suggests the much-publicized quest for more quantum qubits and quantum supremacy may be overshadowed by a more sensible quest to make practical use of the qubits we have now.
The latter view holds particularly true at D-Wave Systems Inc., the Vancouver, B.C., Canada-based quantum computing pioneer that recently disclosed its roadmap for work on logic gate-model quantum computing systems.
D-Wave’s embrace of gates is notable. To date, the company focuses solely on quantum annealing processors. Using this probabilistic approach, it has achieved superconducting qubit processor counts that it claims outpaces most others. Its latest Advantage system boasts 5,000 qubits. That’s well ahead of the 127-qubit device IBM reported in November.
At this point, Scott-Morgan is almost completely “locked-in,” unable to move except for his eyes and a few facial muscles. His sense of smell and taste are gone, and he can’t breathe on his own, but his brilliant mind is fully intact.
Scott-Morgan now relies on a synthetic version of his biological voice and has had his face scanned to produce a 3D animated avatar, which he wears on a screen on his chest when speaking publicly. After a series of operations to extend his life, including a total laryngectomy, he uses technologies like GPT-2, OpenAI’s generative deep-learning model for text, pushing the boundaries of what it means to be human.
Circa 2018
Digitization results in a high energy consumption. In industrialized countries, information technology presently has a share of more than 10% in total power consumption. The transistor is the central element of digital data processing in computing centers, PCs, smartphones, or in embedded systems for many applications from the washing machine to the airplane. A commercially available low-cost USB memory stick already contains several billion transistors. In the future, the single-atom transistor developed by Professor Thomas Schimmel and his team at the Institute of Applied Physics (APH) of KIT might considerably enhance energy efficiency in information technology. “This quantum electronics element enables switching energies smaller than those of conventional silicon technologies by a factor of 10,000,” says physicist and nanotechnology expert Schimmel, who conducts research at the APH, the Institute of Nanotechnology (INT), and the Material Research Center for Energy Systems (MZE) of KIT. Earlier this year, Professor Schimmel, who is considered the pioneer of single-atom electronics, was appointed Co-Director of the Center for Single-Atom Electronics and Photonics established jointly by KIT and ETH Zurich.
In Advanced Materials, the KIT researchers present the transistor that reaches the limits of miniaturization. The scientists produced two minute metallic contacts. Between them, there is a gap as wide as a single metal atom. “By an electric control pulse, we position a single silver atom into this gap and close the circuit,” Professor Thomas Schimmel explains. “When the silver atom is removed again, the circuit is interrupted.” The world’s smallest transistor switches current through the controlled reversible movement of a single atom. Contrary to conventional quantum electronics components, the single-atom transistor does not only work at extremely low temperatures near absolute zero, i.e.-273°C, but already at room temperature. This is a big advantage for future applications.
The single-atom transistor is based on an entirely new technical approach. The transistor exclusively consists of metal, no semiconductors are used. This results in extremely low electric voltages and, hence, an extremely low energy consumption. So far, KIT’s single-atom transistor has applied a liquid electrolyte. Now, Thomas Schimmel and his team have designed a transistor that works in a solid electrolyte. The gel electrolyte produced by gelling an aqueous silver electrolyte with pyrogenic silicon dioxide combines the advantages of a solid with the electrochemical properties of a liquid. In this way, both safety and handling of the single-atom transistor are improved.
Physicists optimized a nuclear fusion reactor to overcome a problem that causes heat loss and prevents the device from sustaining fusion.
Converting to electric is inevitable says the R&D Chief. 🚗
#engineering
The shift to electric transportation is imminent. Hyundai just shut down the engine division that was its pride for almost four decades.
Using CRISPR to stop the replication of SIV, a primate virus closely related to HIV, researchers may have taken a step to wiping the virus out in the body.
Alphabet’s self-driving car company Waymo is partnering with Chinese automaker Geely to create a fleet of all-electric, self-driving robotaxis.
The cars will be designed in Sweden (where Geely owns Swedish carmaker Volvo) and will be adapted from Geely’s all-electric five-door Zeekr. Waymo will then outfit the cars with the hardware and software necessary for autonomous driving. Waymo said in a blog post that it plans to deploy the vehicles in the US as part of its existing fleet of self-driving robotaxis some time “in the years to come.”
Concept images of finished vehicle shared by Waymo show a car that is designed specifically for autonomous ride-hailing trips. It has a flat floor, low step-in height, and B-pillarless design for easy entry and exit, as well as sliding doors, reclining seats, and plenty of headroom. Waymo says future models will have an interior without steering wheel or pedals — just a screen (presumably to let riders check on the progress of their journey).
