New research, published in Nature, has measured highly sought-after Majorana quantum states. A team of theoretical and experimental physicists have designed a new ultra-thin material that they have used to create elusive quantum states. Called one-dimensional Majorana zero energy modes, these quantum states could have a huge impact for quantum computing.
Did you know iron could burn? The combustion of iron powder seen here is taking place on an entirely smokeless, carbon free basis.
Tested in microgravity aboard ESA sounding rockets by a team from McGill University in Canada and Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, this technique has now been harnessed by Swinkels Family Brewers in the Netherlands, helping to free their brewing process from reliance on fossil fuels.
“The best way to reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere is not to emit it at all,” explains ESA engineer Antonio Verga, who worked on flying the team’s experiments aboard TEXUS sounding rockets.
Circa 2018
Californian robotics company Iron Ox claims to be ‘reinventing farming from the ground up’, as it unveils an autonomous indoor farm that leverages the latest advancements in arable science, machine learning, and robotics.
Indoor farms see harvesting, seeding and plant inspections occur thousands of times a day – tasks perfectly suited to robots. Iron Ox is using the latest in machine learning and computer vision to enable its robots to respond to the needs of individual plants.
Walnut Tech AKA Walnutt, the electric skateboard maker with a thing for tiny skateboards, has just announced the pre-sale of its third-generation Spectra X electric skateboard and it is, well, tiny. Despite the diminutive size, Spectra X promised to deliver “a perfect balance of portability and range.” It has almost “unlimited range” – thanks to the swappable batteries.
In theory, as long you load up with battery packs, you can go on indefinitely. We said in theory because, at $99 a pop, buying a bunch of the battery could make you broke. Also, I am pretty sure the dual hub motor will be crying for a break. Anyways, the battery, which is a Samsung 18650 battery, is seamlessly integrated to the underside of the board without marring the aesthetic.
Swapping out battery literally takes a second and with one hand. I find it odd that Walnutt felt the need to emphasize the one-hand part. Anywho… I guess it is cool to know that you can swap battery like a boss. Maybe? Still on the battery… each pack offers between 8 and 10 kilometers (5−6 miles) range and also, Walnutt said the battery is air-friendly, though it did not detail how so. One thing for sure is, Spectra X electric skateboard is more sustainable compared to its cohort since the skateboard need not to be disposed when the battery’s lifespan ends.
An Israeli start-up is the latest to join the race to bring to market a next-generation airship, joining the likes of the UK’s Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) in a nascent sector that has seen more failed efforts than successes in the 83 years since the Hindenburg disaster.
Atlas LTA plans to offer a family of three hybrid airships ranging from the Atlant 30, a 99m-(325ft-) long design, capable of carrying 18, 000kg (39, 700lb), to the 198m-long Atlant 300, which comes with a 165, 000kg payload. In between comes the Atlant 100. The company hopes to have the first variant, the Atlant 30, on the market in “four to five years”.
Russia appears to have used Austin’s network as infrastructure to stage additional cyberattacks.
Circa 2015
Imagine a blimp city floating 30 miles above the scorching surface of Venus – a home for a team of astronauts studying one of the solar system’s most inhospitable planets.
NASA is currently doing just that; floating a concept that could one day see a 30-day manned mission to Earth’s closest planetary neighbor.
Eventually, the mission could involve a permanent human presence suspended above the planet.
According to a report from the Intercept, “state-sponsored hackers believed to be from Russia have breached the city network.” City officials told KVUE they are aware of the hacking group but cannot comment on an ongoing investigation.
The breach is believed to have started in October as part of a series of hacks allegedly carried out by the group Berserk Bear, as reportedly revealed by Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center documents obtained by the Intercept.
According to an October CISA alert, a Russian state-sponsored actor was targeting federal, state, territorial and tribal government networks and aviation networks. CISA urged entities to perform a full password reset and systematically rebuild the network. A statement following the alert named Berserk Bear as the actor, with Texas included in a map of compromised targets.
Microsoft wants you to know this hack is even bigger than you think.
Microsoft president Brad Smith warned that the wide-ranging hack of the SolarWinds’ Orion IT software is “ongoing,” and that investigations reveal “an attack that is remarkable for its scope, sophistication and impact.” The breach targeted several US government agencies and is believed to have been carried out by Russian nation-state hackers.
Smith characterized the hack as “a moment of reckoning” and laid out in no uncertain terms just how large and how dangerous Microsoft believes the hack to be. It “represents an act of recklessness that created a serious technological vulnerability for the United States and the world,” Smith argues.
He believes that it “is not just an attack on specific targets, but on the trust and reliability of the world’s critical infrastructure in order to advance one nation’s intelligence agency.” Though the post stops short of explicitly accusing Russia, the implication is very clear. “The weeks ahead will provide mounting and we believe indisputable evidence about the source of these recent attacks,” according to Smith.
“What we’re looking at now is not just an attack that is ongoing, that is not just highly sophisticated, but also we cannot trust the supply chain. We can no longer trust that any third-party application in these systems has not been compromised by Russia,” says NYT’s Nicole Perlroth.
