Lifeboat Foundation

I think some people would be excited. 😃

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite is poised for a wide-release by the end of 2020 to all drivers who purchased the capability, Elon Musk said, during its Q3 Earnings Call.

“We’re starting very slow and very cautiously because the world is a very complex and messy place,” Musk said when talking about the Beta rollout of the FSD suite to a minimal group of people, which began late Tuesday night. “We put it out there last night, and then we’ll see how it goes, and then probably release it to more people this weekend or early next week. Then gradually step it up until we hopefully have a wide-release by the end of this year.”

Continue reading “Tesla to wide-release Full Self-Driving ‘by the end of this year’” »

PDF | Unprecedented growth of data traffic requirements by users and devices has resulted in an exponential increase in commercial satellites in LEO-HTS… | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate.

This group is making history.

But not to space.

In the second video of our Design for Life collaboration with Dassault Systèmes, Exploration Architecture founder Michael Pawlyn explains how computational design tools allow architects to mimic the natural world.

Pawlyn is the second designer to feature in the Design for Life collaboration between Dezeen and Dassault Systèmes, which highlights designers who are using technology and research to build a better world.

“Biomimicry is innovation inspired by nature,” explained Pawlyn in the video, which was filmed by Dezeen at the founder of biomimicry-focussed practice Exploration Architecture’s home studio in London.

When NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover starts its quest for Martian rocks it will have quite the to-do list:

🕵️‍ Locate
⛏ Drill
🧰 Collect
📦 Stash

The robotic caching system that’ll get the job done is 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘥 𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘬 thanks to NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineer Eric Aguilar: mars.nasa.gov/mars2020

The human eye does not work like a camera, contrary to common belief. Consider the following key factors:

1) Both the cornea and the lens COMBINE to give the focusing effect. Thus it is TWO lenses, not one that allow human vision. In fact the cornea is responsible for two-thirds or more of the focusing effect. The lens compounds that focusing, projecting it from past the pupil onto the curved retina at the back of the eye.

2) The eye corrects for CHROMATIC ABERATION by having a central pit, the FOVEA, where the blue cells are concentrated along the outer rim and the red cells concentrated in the center. Blue light focusses slightly closer to an objective lens and red light slightly further. Thus the red cells are concentrated further back, at the base of the pit, so that the human eye has a natural color correction without the need for complex color corrected lenses.

Continue reading “Metalens Retinal Projection Using The Eye’s Inherent Structure” »

Windows are great for letting in light, but in summer months that comes with an unwanted side order of heat, causing many people to run the air conditioning non-stop. Now, researchers have developed windows that can change color automatically when heated by sunlight, to keep buildings cool – and to top it off, they’re solar panels as well.

Color-changing glass has been around for a long time, most commonly as transition lenses for eyeglasses that tint automatically under bright light. More recent developments have made it electronic and switchable on demand, and scaled it up to window size. At the same time, transparent (or semi-transparent) solar cells are getting more efficient, to the point where they can be fitted into windows.

In the new study, researchers at the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has combined the two technologies into one window. The “thermochromic photovoltaic” tech, as they call it, can switch colors when heated up by sunlight to block glare and reduce the need for cooling, and when it does it also starts harvesting energy from that light.

Rooftop solar, Covid and more large scale renewables push Australia’s main grid to record low levels of demand and emissions intensity, and the lowest prices in years.

The combined impact of growing rooftop solar and the Covid-19 pandemic – along with the continued influx of large scale wind and solar – has create a suite of new records in Australia’s electricity grids in the September quarter, sending demand, emissions and prices to new lows.

The latest Quarterly Energy Dynamics for the September quarter, compiled by the Australian Energy Market Operator, also noted record highs for wind and solar output, which along with falling gas prices and cut-price bidding by coal generators trying to stay competitive led to the lowest wholesale prices in more than five years, and in some cases, record low prices.

Continue reading “Solar and Covid lead change as grid demand, prices and emissions tumble to record lows” »

MIT researchers reinvented the wheel, turning any basic bike into a hybrid booster.