Author: Trace Rock

Tesla

Tesla Cybertruck on track to launch summer 2023, Elon Musk says

By Jaclyn Trop

Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed Wednesday that the automaker aims to launch its long-awaited Cybertruck mid-2023.

“We are still expecting to be in production with the Cybertruck in middle of next year,” Musk said during Tesla’s second-quarter financial report. “We’re very excited about that product. It might actually be our best product ever.”

Although prototypes have been spotted on public roads since 2019, details on the hotly anticipated Cybertruck have been scant and production has been repeatedly delayed.

During the earnings call with analysts, Musk said that the battery-electric truck will benefit from Tesla’s learnings on boosting efficiency throughout the manufacturing process.

“We’ll bring another level of simplicity and manufacturing improvements with Cybertruck and future products that we’re not quite ready to talk about now,” Musk said, “but that I think will be very exciting to unveil in the future.”

Continue reading… “Tesla Cybertruck on track to launch summer 2023, Elon Musk says”
quantum computing

Physicists Create City-Sized Ultrasecure Quantum Network

By Sierra Mitchell

Quantum cryptography promises a future in which computers communicate with one another over ultrasecure links using the razzle-dazzle of quantum physics. But scaling up the breakthroughs in research labs to networks with a large number of nodes has proved difficult. Now an international team of researchers has built a scalable city-wide quantum network to share keys for encrypting messages.

The network can grow in size without incurring an unreasonable escalation in the costs of expensive quantum hardware. Also, this system does not require any node to be trustworthy, thus removing any security-sapping weak links.

“We have tested it both in the laboratory and in deployed fibers across the city of Bristol” in England, says Siddarth Koduru Joshi of the University of Bristol. He and his colleagues demonstrated their ideas using a quantum network with eight nodes in which the most distant nodes were 17 kilometers apart, as measured by the length of the optical fiber connecting them. The team’s findings appeared in Science Advances on September 2.

Continue reading… “Physicists Create City-Sized Ultrasecure Quantum Network”
Driverless cars

Baidu Unveils Next-Gen Autonomous Vehicle With Detachable Steering Wheel

China’s Baidu, Inc. has unveiled its next-generation fully autonomous vehicle (AV) Apollo RT6, an all-electric, production-ready model with a detachable steering wheel. Designed for complex urban environments, Apollo RT6 will be put into operation in China in 2023 on Apollo Go, Baidu’s autonomous ride-hailing service.

The steering wheel-free design frees up more space to allow the installation of extra seating, vending machines, desktops, or gaming consoles.

Apollo RT6 integrates Baidu’s most advanced L4 autonomous driving system, powered by automotive-grade dual computing units with a computing power of up to 1200 TOPS.

The vehicle utilises 38 sensors, including 8 LiDARs and 12 cameras, to obtain highly accurate, long-range detection on all sides.

Apollo RT6 is the first vehicle model built on Xinghe, Baidu’s self-developed automotive E/E architecture specially for fully autonomous driving.

Continue reading… “Baidu Unveils Next-Gen Autonomous Vehicle With Detachable Steering Wheel”
Aviation

Scientists Develop Futuristic Jet Fuel By Using Water, Sunlight and CO2

The solar fuel-production plant at IMDEA Energy Institute in Madrid. Scientists are developing a futuristic jet fuel by using water, CO2 and sunlight.

BY SIMONA KITANOVSKA

A carbon-neutral aviation fuel has been developed by scientists. The futuristic fuel uses water, carbon dioxide and sunlight to power jet engines.

Researchers in Switzerland are the first to produce the fuel in a power generator rather than a lab.

The amount of synthetic jet fuel it emits when it combusts in a plane’s engine equals the amount consumed during its production in a solar plant, thus making it carbon neutral.

The fuel will be even greener if the team can capture carbon dioxide from the air in the not-too-distant future and use it in the fuel.

The solar-made kerosene, or jet fuel, is fully compatible with the existing way fuel is stored, distributed, and used in a plane’s engine.

No clean and effective way of flying planes exists today.

Continue reading… “Scientists Develop Futuristic Jet Fuel By Using Water, Sunlight and CO2”
AI

FUSEPROJECT’S BIONIC LEG WEARABLE IMPROVES LIVES OF THOSE LIVING WITH MOBILITY DIFFICULTIES USING AI

Technology has changed the lives of a lot of people, not just in terms of having access to information or having readily available communication tools. There are a lot of companies out there that are using all these advances to create devices and tools that can help people living with disabilities have a more independent life. Those with mobility difficulties from such conditions like multiple sclerosis, stroke, cerebral palsy, etc can now use this new piece of bionic clothing that is not just functional but also easy to use and a bit fashionable.

Continue reading… “FUSEPROJECT’S BIONIC LEG WEARABLE IMPROVES LIVES OF THOSE LIVING WITH MOBILITY DIFFICULTIES USING AI”
Medical Breakthrough

Artificial Heart: Researchers Use Focused Rotary Jet Spinning Technology for More Advanced Human Transplant

A representation of an artificial heart valve through a 3D Medical Animation

By Marie Morales 

The researchers of Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have devised the first-ever biohybrid model of beating cardiac cells aligned helically.

As a Healthclubfinder report specifies, “the future of cardiac medicine involves tissue engineering.” Specifically, it includes the development of a human heart intended for transplant.

The future of cardiac medicine involves tissue engineering. It includes the creation of a human heart for transplant.

This model revealed that the alignment of muscles does, in fact, substantially increase the amount of blood that the ventricle can pump with every contraction.

Continue reading… “Artificial Heart: Researchers Use Focused Rotary Jet Spinning Technology for More Advanced Human Transplant”
Aviation

Boom Supersonic unveils high-speed jet to be built in Greensboro

Boom Supersonic is set to build a manufacturing facility at PTI airport later this year for it’s supersonic Overture jet.

By Grace Holland

GREENSBORO, N.C. — The supersonic jet maker on it’s way to the Triad is sending shockwaves with a new design released Tuesday.

Boom Supersonic released new images of the jet it plans to build at PTI in the coming years.

The company is set to break ground on its facility later this year.

Boom Supersonic said its Overture jet concepts were released after it did testing and simulations. The plan is for this to be a supersonic jet, similar to the Concorde but more environmentally friendly.

Boom said the jet will be able to carry up to 80 passengers at twice the speed of today’s jets. It wants to build the plans by 2025 and carry passengers by 2029.

Before it builds the planes, it has to build the factory.

PTI’s Executive Director, Kevin Baker, said there’s been a lot of progress made at the site in the seven months since Boom announced it would come to the airport.

“We’re grading (the site). In fact, we’ve got a lot of the site at grade at this point,” Baker said. “We worked with the company as they lay out their facilities and modify that design. It’s a very fast-paced project and luckily we had a lot of this underway.”

Continue reading… “Boom Supersonic unveils high-speed jet to be built in Greensboro”
Aviation

Rolls-Royce, Hyundai Motor join hands to fly fuel-cell aircraft in the air by 2025

Rolls-Royce and Hyundai Motor Group have announced their plans to collaborate on bringing all-electric propulsion and hydrogen fuel cell technology to the AAM (Advanced Air Mobility) market. The partnership will leverage the aviation and certification capabilities of Rolls-Royce and the hydrogen fuel cell technologies and industrialisation capability of Hyundai Motor Group.

Both these companies share a vision to lead the way in the AAM market by delivering battery-electric and fuel cell electric solutions to the UAM (Urban Air Mobility) and RAM (Regional Air Mobility) markets and advancing sustainable aviation.

Continue reading… “Rolls-Royce, Hyundai Motor join hands to fly fuel-cell aircraft in the air by 2025”
Metaverse

MetaMundo Launches Pioneering 3D Marketplace for the Metaverse

MetaMundo has launched the first 3D marketplace for collecting metaverse scenes and assets.

By Max Antony Rapkin

Scenes such as 3D galleries, villas, music venues, parks, avatars and vehicles will be sold as NFTs on the marketplace by leading artists, architects, and designers.

Crucially, all 3D NFTs on the marketplace will be compatible with multiple metaverse platforms, such as The Sandbox, Cryptovoxels, Decentraland and Spatial.

“MetaMundo’s vision is to facilitate a beautifully designed, interoperable, and open metaverse – an immersive 3D social internet, where everyone can own and build parts of it through blockchain technology. The marketplace launch is our first major step towards realizing this vision,” said Finn Hansen, co-founder of MetaMundo. “For the first time, we have enabled metaverse users to collect high-quality 3D scenes—minted as NFTs—for use across many virtual environments.

Now, users can visit the marketplace and enjoy an immersive exploration of two scenes built by leading 3D creators Dutchtide, and the American modernist architect Luis Fernandez.

Continue reading… “MetaMundo Launches Pioneering 3D Marketplace for the Metaverse”
new technology

A new plasma boring robot can dig tunnels 100 times faster and 98% cheaper

Earthgrid plans to re-wire grids across the U.S. at record speed and at a fraction of the cost.

By Chris Young

San Francisco-based startup Earthgrid is developing a plasma boring robot that is capable of digging tunnels 100 times faster, and up to 98 percent cheaper than existing boring systems, a report from New Atlas reveals.

The company plans to use its technology to re-wire energy, internet, and utility grids in the U.S.

Meet Earthgrid’s Rapid Burrowing Robot.

Unlike conventional boring machines, which typically use massive cutting wheels to slowly excavate tunnels, Earthgrid’s robot blasts rocks with high temperatures to break and even vaporize them via a process called spallation. 

The machine can run on electricity, meaning it can also be emissions-free, depending on how energy is sourced. Earthgrid also claims that its system, which doesn’t need to come into contact with the rocks directly as it excavates, is so fast and cheap it will open up a whole host of possibilities. In other words, projects that were once deemed economically unfeasible will now be possible.

Earthgrid is currently operating on pre-seed funding, and it is developing its “Rapid Burrowing Robot (RBR)”, a spallation boring robot with several 48,600 °F (27,000 °C) plasma torches mounted on large discs.

When operational, the RBR will fire up those torches and rotate the discs to blast the rocky surface in its way. The torches on the discs are arranged in a Fibonacci spiral, meaning they widen out away from the center for full coverage. Debris is collected in small pushcarts.

Continue reading… “A new plasma boring robot can dig tunnels 100 times faster and 98% cheaper”
Batteries

A 5-minute EV charging startup raises $59 million

A Cambridge University professor’s ultrafast EV battery startup has raised $59 million in Series B funding. Nyobolt aims to develop a battery that can achieve 5-minute EV charging time.

By Michelle Lewis

Goslar, Germany-based H.C. Starck Tungsten Powders (HSC), a wholly owned subsidiary of Hanoi-headquartered Masan High-Tech Materials, the largest manufacturer of mid-stream tungsten products outside of China, led the funding for Cambridge, UK-based Nyobolt.

EV charging in 5 minutes.

H.C. Starck will help Nyobolt scale up its R&D and manufacturing centers in the UK and US, as well as its battery recycling program. 

Nyobolt’s executives say it’s currently focusing on developing batteries for high-performance racing EVs, and that its batteries could be ready for use in mass-market EV models later this decade, according to Reuters.

Hady Seyeda, CEO of H.C. Starck Tungsten Powders, said:

Nyobolt’s technology is a real breakthrough that we can help commercialize based on our vast experience in transferring innovative solutions into large-scale manufacturing. This partnership is also going to accelerate the development toward a circular economy for batteries via enhanced recycling and new models of use.

Continue reading… “A 5-minute EV charging startup raises $59 million”