Lifeboat Foundation

Goodbye gas stations.

During the second quarter earnings call, Elon Musk tentatively confirmed that Tesla would be making a compact car and a vehicle with high capacity. Granted, it would probably take a few more years before such vehicles are produced, but one thing seems certain. Considering Tesla’s speed and pace, it would not be surprising if Tesla’s compact car and high capacity EV causes the extinction of the internal combustion engine.

Tesla’s current lineup of vehicles, which comprise the Model S, Model 3, Model X, and Model Y, are great EVs, but they are still fairly large for their class. This includes the Model 3 and the Model Y, Tesla’s “smaller” vehicles in its lineup. This, together with the vehicles’ premium price, end up blocking the company from reaching its full potential in the auto market. With a compact car and a high capacity vehicle, however, things could drastically change for Tesla.

Continue reading “Tesla’s next vehicles have the potential to usher in the extinction of gas cars” »

https://youtube.com/watch?v=0qhw8BSbpVY

The industries that shepherd goods around the world on ships, planes and trucks acknowledge they aren’t ready to handle the challenges of shipping an eventual Covid-19 vaccine from drugmakers to billions of people.

Already stretched thin by the pandemic, freight companies face problems ranging from shrinking capacity on container ships and cargo aircraft to a lack of visibility on when a vaccine will arrive. Shippers have struggled for years to reduce cumbersome paperwork and upgrade old technology that, unless addressed soon, will slow the relay race to transport fragile vials of medicine in unprecedented quantities.

Continue reading “The World’s Supply Chain Isn’t Ready for a Covid-19 Vaccine” »

After Elon Musk mentioned that Tesla was working on a couple more vehicles, a compact car and “high capacity” vehicle, my mind started to race about how this van-like vehicle could use all of the technologies that Elon has mentioned in various interviews. First, let’s cover the basics that I’m 99% sure the vehicle will have. I got some of these ideas from one of my Cybertruck articles. After that, I’ll take things in a little different direction than our previous “Tesla Cybervan” article.

Could this 5th wheel RV be the future of electric towing? Since Tesla announced the revolutionary Cybertruck in 2019, RVers have wanted to know if it can tow a trailer.

Let’s get one thing straight – it’s clear the Cybertruck has the power to tow, but Tesla hasn’t given any guidance on how far it can tow on a single charge.

This 5th wheel rendering was posted on the Tesla Cybertruck Owners forum.

So, you’ve seen some amazing GPT-3 demos on Twitter (if not, where have you been?). This mega machine learning model, created by OpenAI, can write it’s own op-eds, poems, articles, and even working code:

If you want to try out GPT-3 today, you’ll need to apply to be whitelisted by OpenAI. But the applications of this model seem endless – you could ostensibly use it to query a SQL database in plain English, automatically comment code, automatically generate code, write trendy article headlines, write viral Tweets, and a whole lot more.

Are you fascinated with microbiology? Have you ever thought about how to integrate your passion for research and entrepreneurship? The field of microbiology is expanding and being significantly impacted by advancements in technology. Recently, we interviewed Zack Abbott, Ph.D., who is the co-founder of ZBiotics. Zack explained his journey from studying infectious diseases to starting his own business focused on engineering bacteria for positive results. If you’ve ever wondered how you can be on the cutting edge of life sciences research, while working for yourself, read on about Zack’s experience.

1. Can you tell us a little bit about your background before entering the microbiology field?

I did my undergrad at UC Berkeley, where I double-majored in Molecular and Cell Biology and Classical History. I did not leave college thinking I would be a microbiologist. I wasn’t actually sure what I wanted to do, and so I tried out a few different jobs. Eventually, while gaining experience as a research assistant in an HIV lab at UC Davis, I realized that I would be happy with a career in infectious disease.

StartX startup Buzz Solutions out of Stanford, California just introduced its AI solution to help utilities quickly spot powerline and grid faults so repairs can be made before wildfires start.

Their unique platform uses AI and machine vision technology to analyze millions of images of powerlines and towers from drones, helicopters, and aircraft to find dangerous faults and flaws as well as overgrown vegetation, in and around the grid infrastructure to help utilities identify problem areas and repair them before a fire starts.

This system can do the analysis at half the cost and in a fraction of the time compared to humans, hours to days not months to years.

What’s the big deal about little Phobos and tinier Deimos?

A close-up view of Phobos, the larger of Mars’s two moons. It is 17 miles across. Credit… NASA/JPL/University of Arizona.

“‘Aurora will enable us to explore new frontiers in artificial intelligence and machine learning,’ said Narayanan ‘Bobby’ Kasthuri, assistant professor of neurobiology at the University of Chicago and researcher at Argonne. ‘This will be the first time scientists have had a machine powerful enough to match the kind of computations the brain can do.’”

Super computer Aurora will help map the human brain at “quintillion—or one billion billion—calculations per second, 50 times quicker than today’s most powerful supercomputers.”

Note: the article discusses implications beyond neuroscience.

Continue reading “New Argonne supercomputer, built for next-gen AI, will be most powerful in U.S.” »