Lifeboat Foundation

“You could sort of see a home use for robots, certainly industrial uses for robots, humanoid robots,” he said.

Musk’s musings about AI came during Tesla’s first-ever Investor Day presentation, which was held at the carmaker’s Austin, Texas, Gigafactory.

During the presentation, Musk showed an updated video of the company’s “Optimus” robot prototype, which Musk said he aims to use in Tesla factories and sell to the public.

The photo showed the rear end of a red Tesla Model S parked in a home garage. A rather large Tesla home charger could be seen on a wall, but it did not seem to be plugged into the all-electric flagship sedan directly at all. Instead, the Model S was parked over what looked like a wireless charging pad. This promptly fueled speculations that Tesla may be looking to roll out a wireless charging system, at least for residential customers, in the future.

A wireless charging system for Teslas would be nothing short of a game-changer. The company’s Supercharger Network already changed the game thanks to its ease of use and convenience. But even manually plugging in a Tesla to a charger is less convenient than just parking over a charging pad. Of course, there are some notable disadvantages to wireless charging, such as slower charging speeds. But if Tesla can figure out a way to roll out a wireless charging system with at least a decent charging rate, the company’s vehicles would likely become even more attractive to consumers.

The new supercomputer system can predict the occurrence of linear rainbands, which are clouds that trigger heavy rain, leading to natural disasters.

Trust Japan to get a supercomputer to predict heavy rain and other natural disasters like landslides and flooding.

Japan has always had to deal with natural disasters as the island is located along an area where several tectonic plates meet. The country is highly vulnerable to natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and natural disasters. These have only been exacerbated due to climate change.

It took a while, but better late than never.

Tesla has now begun to provide non-Tesla electric vehicle owners in the U.S. with access to some Supercharger stations and has also explained how the stations work, Electrek.

Continue reading “Tesla Superchargers will now charge non-Tesla electric vehicles” »

Electric-car maker Tesla Inc. plans to build a manufacturing plant in the northern Mexican industrial hub of Monterrey, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Tuesday.

Mr. López Obrador, who spoke several times in recent days with Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, added at his morning press conference that details of the investment would be made known Wednesday.

Water is a vital resource, and clean water is a necessity. Texas A&M University researchers have developed a new technique to monitor one of the key processes of purifying water in real time.

Raw water contains microscopic pathogens that are too small to remove during water and wastewater treatment easily. Chemicals are added to form large clumps called flocs, which are easily filtered out. Flocculation is the process used in water treatment to remove suspended particles from the water.

“Coagulant chemicals need to be added to purify drinking water and remove turbidity (cloudiness) and microbes that are too small to be visible to the naked eye,” said Dr. Kuang-An Chang, professor in the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Texas A&M.

The ship could be ready by the autumn of 2024.

A consortium of companies in the U.K. has bagged a GBP 5.4 million (US$6.46) government grant to build the world’s first liquid hydrogen-powered autonomous vessel and its allied infrastructure, a press release said. The grant is aimed at helping decarbonize the maritime sector.

Continue reading “A hydrogen-powered autonomous ship could help decarbonize maritime transport” »

Researchers have discovered that channeling ions into defined pathways in perovskite materials improves the stability and operational performance of perovskite solar cells. The finding paves the way for a new generation of lighter, more flexible, and more efficient solar cell technologies suitable for practical use.

Perovskite materials, which are defined by their crystalline structure, are better at absorbing light than silicon is. That means that perovskite solar cells can be thinner and lighter than silicon solar cells without sacrificing the cell’s ability to convert light into electricity.

“That opens the door to a host of new technologies, such as flexible, lightweight solar cells, or layered solar cells (known as tandems) that can be far more efficient than the solar harvesting technology used today in so-called solar farms,” says Aram Amassian, corresponding author of a paper on the discovery. “There’s interest in integrating perovskite materials into silicon solar cell technologies, which would improve their efficiency from 25% to 40% while also making use of existing infrastructure.” Amassian is a professor of materials science and engineering at North Carolina State University.

Armed with tools and repair guides from hardware repair advocacy firm iFixit, a user can remove and replace the phone’s back cover, battery, screen and charging port.

Adam Ferguson, head of product marketing at HMD Global, said that this process would cost on average 30% less than replacing an old phone with a new one.

Smartphone companies are increasingly working to make phones last for longer amid pressure from regulators to make electronics devices more sustainable.