Lifeboat Foundation

Microsoft will be using Starlink broad band for their cloud services.

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell announced today the company will collaborate with Microsoft to connect Starlink broadband internet satellites with Microsoft’s Azure cloud service. “Our new partnership with SpaceX Starlink will provide high-speed, low-latency satellite broadband for the new Azure Modular Datacenter (MDC),” Microsoft detailed in a press release. “SpaceX is of course the name that people immediately think of when they think of innovation and the evolution that’s occurring to bring space technology into the 21st century,” said Tom Keane, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Azure Global.

Starlink is SpaceX’s plan to create an internet-beaming satellite constellation in low Earth orbit to provide service globally. Primarily focused in areas where internet connection is unreliable and nonexistent. To date, SpaceX has deployed a bit over 800 satellites to orbit out of the thousands that will comprise the Starlink network. —“The collaboration that we’re announcing today will allow us to work together to deliver new offerings for both the public and the private sector to deliver connectivity through Starlink for use on Azure,” Shotwell said in a video announcement (shown below). “Where it makes sense, we will work with [Microsoft]: co-selling to our mutual customers, co-selling to new enterprise and future customers.”

Continue reading “SpaceX will collaborate with Microsoft to connect Starlink broadband with Azure cloud service” »

A ‘robot revolution’ is underway and could lead to half of all jobs being done by machines by 2025, according to forecasters.

The World Economic Forum has said that 97 million new jobs are set to be created by increased automation of manual and routine labour in several major industries.

But they’ve warned that just as many jobs will be lost, and that the trend could worsen inequality in poorer communities as humans lose out to machines in the workplace.

The planes of the future may have flapping wings. 😃

Is it a bird, is it a plane? Well, this new Airbus prototype aircraft is kind of both.

Continue reading “Airbus Tests Bird-Like Flapping Wings For Its Future Aircraft” »

Tesla owners who are part of the limited Full Self-Driving rollout have started sharing some images and videos of the advanced driver-assist features in action. Based on videos and the Release Notes of the limited beta, it appears that Tesla is heavily emphasizing safety.

Among the lucky Tesla owners who received the update were @brandonee916 and the @teslaownerssv group, both of whom shared a images and short clips of the limited Full Self-driving beta in action.

Overall, the UI of the limited beta seems to be quite rough in its current state. With this in mind, there seems to be a good chance that the visuals of FSD will be more refined by the time it gets a wider release.

For the first time, scientists have created pigs, goats and cattle that can serve as viable “surrogate sires,” male animals that produce sperm carrying only the genetic traits of donor animals.

The advance, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Sept. 14, could speed the spread of desirable characteristics in livestock and improve food production for a growing global population. It also would enable breeders in remote regions better access to genetic material of elite animals from other parts of the world and allow more precision breeding in animals such as goats where using artificial insemination is difficult.

“With this technology, we can get better dissemination of desirable traits and improve the efficiency of food production. This can have a major impact on addressing food insecurity around the world,” said Jon Oatley, a reproductive biologist with WSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine. “If we can tackle this genetically, then that means less water, less feed and fewer antibiotics we have to put into the animals.”

Photos of touching down on an asteroid.

On Tuesday, October 20th, NASA made history when the OSIRIS-REx mission successfully completed a “touch-and-go” sample collection maneuver with asteroid 101955 Bennu over 200 million miles away from Earth. And now, we have the timelapse to prove it.

Continue reading “NASA Shares Photos from ‘Touch-and-Go’ with Asteroid Bennu 200 Million Miles Away” »

It looks like Australia with be exporting solar power to other countries with less space.

A major renewable energy project in Australia billed as the world’s largest solar farm in development has had its proposed location revealed.

The AUD$20 billion facility – the heart of an ambitious electricity network called the Australia–ASEAN Power Link – will be built at a remote cattle station in the Northern Territory, roughly halfway between Darwin and Alice Springs.

Continue reading “World’s Largest Solar Farm to Be Built in Australia — But They Won’t Get The Power” »

This Japanese startup wants to sell 100 flying cars by 2028, each for the price of an “expensive car.”

Thanks to the tea bag! 😃

Also: Starlinks soar but GPS stays grounded, NASA names first Virgin Galactic flier.