How long should an EV battery last? Elon Musk seems to think that a million miles is just about right — last April he announced that Tesla had a “1 million-mile battery pack” in the pipeline. That’s an ambitious goal, to say the least — do we really need a battery that lasts three to four times as long as a typical car? We will.
As a recent article posted on Forbes points out, while today’s typical Li-ion battery packs are more than adequate for individual EV owners, applications such as taxi services and long-distance trucking will require batteries optimized for longevity (according to writer Ariel Cohen, the average trucker logs some 100,000 to 150,000 miles per year). Thus, long-life batteries are likely to be critical to the success of the Tesla Network (a proposed fleet of robo-taxis) and the Tesla Semi.
On this trivia episode of X10, Veera quizzes Nicola and Giuliano on stem cells, giving them five genuine stumpers from Ulla-Kaisa Peteri that leave them unsure and puzzled throughout.
Want to test your knowledge about stem cells with this not-so-trivial trivia? Let’s see if you can do better than Giuliano and Nicola! (You probably can, especially better than Nicola…).
Thanks to Ulla-Kaisa Peteri for preparing the questions!
LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Jan. 15, 2020 — Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have incorporated meticulously engineered colloidal quantum dots into a new type of LED containing an integrated optical resonator, which allows the LEDs to function as lasers.
The LiveWire may have been Harley-Davidson’s first foray into electric motorcycles, but it certainly wasn’t its last. And taking a look at the next Harley-Davidson electric motorcycle in the works may help lend some insight into the direction this legacy motorcycle manufacturer is headed.
Science fiction writers envisioned the technology decades ago, and startups have been working on developing an actual product for at least 10 years.
Today, Mojo Vision announced that it has done just that—put 14K pixels-per-inch microdisplays, wireless radios, image sensors, and motion sensors into contact lenses that fit comfortably in the eyes. The first generation of Mojo Lenses are being powered wirelessly, though future generations will have batteries on board. A small external pack, besides providing power, handles sensor data and sends information to the display. The company is calling the technology Invisible Computing, and company representatives say it will get people’s eyes off their phones and back onto the world around them.
The first application, says Steve Sinclair, senior vice president of product and marketing, will likely be for people with low vision—providing real-time edge detection and dropping crisp lines around objects. In a demonstration last week at CES 2020, I used a working prototype (albeit by squinting through the lens rather than putting it into my eyes), and the device highlighted shapes in bright green as I looked around a dimly lit room.
We’re at a fascinating point in the discourse around artificial intelligence (AI) and all things “smart”. At one level, we may be reaching “peak hype”, with breathless claims and counter claims about potential society impacts of disruptive technologies. Everywhere we look, there’s earnest discussion of AI and its exponentially advancing sisters – blockchain, sensors, the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, cloud computing, 3D / 4D printing, and hyperconnectivity. At another level, for many, it is worrying to hear politicians and business leaders talking with confidence about the transformative potential and societal benefits of these technologies in application ranging from smart homes and cities to intelligent energy and transport infrastructures.
Why the concern? Well, these same leaders seem helpless to deal with any kind of adverse weather incident, ground 70,000 passengers worldwide with no communication because someone flicked the wrong switch, and rush between Brexit crisis meetings while pretending they have a coherent strategy. Hence, there’s growing concern that we’ll see genuine stupidity in the choices made about how we deploy ever more powerful smart technologies across our infrastructure for society’s benefit. So, what intelligent choices could ensure that intelligent tools genuinely serve humanity’s best future interests.
Firstly, we are becoming a society of connected things with appalling connectivity. Literally every street lamp, road sign, car component, object we own, and item of clothing we wear could be carrying a sensor in the next five to ten years. With a trillion plus connected objects throwing off a continuous stream of information – we are talking about a shift from big to humungous data. The challenge is how we’ll transport that information? For Britain to realise its smart nation goals and attract the industries of tomorrow in the post-Brexit world, it seems imperative that we have broadband speeds that puts us amongst the five fastest nations on the planet. This doesn’t appear to be part of the current plan.
