Impact Lab – Page 357 – A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience

Space Flight

A Chinese business is working on a spacecraft that will be able to supply space station of China, with the small demo launch planned for 2022. InterSpace Explore, based in Beijing, struck a deal with Galactic Energy, a Chinese commercial launch company, on August 4 to launch the Zengzhang-1 demo returnable satellite on the Ceres-1 solid rocket in the year 2022.

Interspace Explore, formally known as Beijing Interstellar Development Technology Company Ltd., acquired millions of Chinese yuan (about ¥6.48 for every dollar) from Innoangel Fund, an investment firm the next day. According to Chinese media estimates, the Zenghang-1 (Growth-1) spacecraft will possess a launch mass of roughly 350 kgs and a payload of over 100 kilos.

At a media briefing, Fu Shiming, Interspace Explore founder and a former employee of state-owned spacecraft manufacturer China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) as well as a Tiangong-2 space lab project’s member, said that spacecraft are critical to human utilization of space resources and have significant commercial and military value.

Hyperloop

See how Virgin Hyperloop’s speedy pod-slinging tube will transport you

September 2, 2021

The futuristic Richard Branson-backed venture wants to sling you around at jet plane speeds inside magnetic pods.

By Eric Mack

Hyperloop, the futuristic bullet-train-in-a-tube concept originally conceived by Elon Musk, has had a makeover courtesy of Virgin Hyperloop. The company released the below concept video on Monday laying out its updated vision of electromagnetically propelled passenger pods whipping riders between cities at jet plane speeds.

Think of hyperloop as a maglev train that runs inside a tube with a near-vacuum environment, thus eliminating almost all friction and air resistance, allowing for comfortable travel at speeds up to 670 miles per hour (1,070 kilometers per hour). Other conceptions for the technology, which is based on ideas for low-pressure travel dating back several decades and updated for the 21st century in an open-source white paper by Musk, have looked like a maglev train in a tube.

Agriculture

Unstung Heroes: Startup’s AI-Powered Tomato Pollinator Gives Bees a Break

September 2, 2021

Arugga AI Farming Ltd. Company founders Eytan Heller (left) and Iddo Geltner (right) at top.

by TONY KONTZER

There are nearly a half million acres of greenhouse tomato crops in the world, an area about 35 times the size of Manhattan. In other words, lots of tomatoes.

Growing them requires more than soil, water and sunlight. The plants are self-pollinating, but they need a little help getting the pollen to drop onto the female organ of the flower and trigger the process.

Typically, this is the job of bumblebees, which knock the pollen loose with the vibrations created by their beating flight muscles.

That, however, could change thanks to Israel-based startup Arugga. The company builds AI-powered robots that use computer vision to determine which flowers are ready for pollination and then blast air pulses at them to mimic the action of bumblebees and initiate pollination.

Science & Technology News, Trending

Ranked: The World’s Fastest Growing Cities

September 1, 2021

By Avery Koop

By 2025, the world’s population will reach over 8.1 billion people.

Most of that population growth will be concentrated in cities across Africa and Asia. To help paint a detailed picture, this map uses data from the United Nations to rank the top 20 fastest growing cities in the world in terms of average annual growth rate from 2020 to 2025.

IBM

IBM Launches Telum, Its New AI Chip

September 1, 2021

Our goal is to continue improving AI hardware compute efficiency by 2.5 times every year for a decade, achieving 1,000 times better performance by 2029.

IBM has announced its new chip, Telum – a new CPU chip that will allow IBM clients to leverage deep learning inference at scale. The new chip features a centralised design, which allows clients to leverage the full power of the AI processor for AI-specific workloads, making it ideal for financial services workloads like fraud detection, loan processing, clearing and settlement of trades, anti-money laundering, and risk analysis.

A Telum-based system is planned for the first half of 2022. “Our goal is to continue improving AI hardware compute efficiency by 2.5 times every year for a decade, achieving 1,000 times better performance by 2029,” said IBM in a press release.

Human Behavior

Gen Z is made of zombies — less educated, more depressed, without values

September 1, 2021

High school students spend more time connected to digital devices and less time with their families, leading to a hollowing out of the current generation, teacher Jeremy Adams writes.

By Todd Farley

Each new school year, Jeremy Adams, a teacher in Bakersfield, Calif., gives the same lesson. When he shows pictures of celebrities like Kendall Jenner or Miley Cyrus to his students on a screen, they immediately recognize them. But faced with photos of policymakers like Mike Pence or Nancy Pelosi, the children stare blankly.

That ignorance is no joke to Adams, he writes in his new book, “Hollowed Out: A Warning About America’s Next Generation” (Regnery Publishing), out now.

“We need to brace ourselves for what lies ahead. I write this book as an alarm bell … a project born out of worry, concern and frustration.”

A National Teacher of the Year nominee, Adams frets that today’s youngsters are “barren of the behavior, values and hopes from which human beings have traditionally found higher meaning … or even simple contentment.” Adams calls them “hollowed out,” a generation living solitary lives, hyperconnected to technology but unattached from their families, churches or communities. He cites statistics showing teen depression rose 63 percent from 2007 to 2017 while teen suicide grew 56 percent. Tragically, he writes, suicide has become the second leading cause of death for the young.

Electric Vehicles

This Startup Produces EVs in a Different Way: Minifactories

August 31, 2021

Instead of investing billions of dollars, these $50 million plants could save companies.

By Loukia Papadopoulos

Electric car and van startups are looking for new ways to manufacture their products. They all learned from Tesla which experienced a manufacturing hell when first producing its vehicles.

“The thing that’s remarkable is that Tesla didn’t go bankrupt in reaching volume production,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in a July 26 earnings call, according to Reuters.

Now British-American startup called Arrival, which builds electric vans and buses, has become the poster boy for using “microfactories” to build its products. These small plants cost a mere $50 million and do not feature expensive equipment. Arrival’s vans are made of lightweight colored plastic composite foregoing the need for pricey paint shops.

Tesla

Tesla is working on an AI-powered humanoid robot

August 31, 2021

The Tesla Bot will be designed to perform dangerous and boring tasks for humans.

By M. Moon

Tesla is building a humanoid robot simply called the Tesla Bot, Elon Musk has revealed at the automaker’s (and, perhaps, soon-to-be-robotmaker’s) AI Day event. It’s intended to be friendly, he said, and be slow and weak enough that you can outrun and overpower it — you know, just in case the robot uprising does happen in the future.

The Tesla Bot will run on an artificial intelligence system, not unlike the company’s Autopilot technology for its vehicles. It will be designed to do various dangerous and repetitive tasks for humans and navigate our world without having to be fed step-by-step instructions. Musk said it should be able to follow simple commands, like “Please pick up that bolt and attach it to the car with that wrench.” It should also be able to get groceries for owners and perform other menial tasks.

Batteries

BMW Proposes to Use Old Batteries in Off-Grid Solar Charging Stations

August 31, 2021

by Gustavo Henrique Ruffo

The three “Rs” for a more sustainable life are Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. BMW created a project in Brazil that used the first two Rs to prevent the third one. After collecting used battery modules from some i3s it sold in that country, the company joined UFSC (Federal University of Santa Catarina), Grupo Solvi, and Energy Source to create an off-grid solar charging station. 9 photos

The solution comprises eight solar panels on the roof of the charging station. They feed a tower with six battery modules from the i3 which are no longer good enough for automotive use but are perfectly fine for storing the energy generated by these solar panels. An inverter manages these modules. It controls both the energy stored and charging electric vehicles that connect to the charging tower thanks to a BMW Wallbox charger.

Tesla

Tesla Packs 50 Billion Transistors Onto D1 Dojo Chip Designed to Conquer Artificial Intelligence Training

August 31, 2021

D1 deliver 362 TeraFLOPs of power

By Aleksandar Kostovic

Artificial intelligence (AI) has seen a broad adoption over the past couple of years. At Tesla, who as many know is a company that works on electric and autonomous vehicles, AI has a massive value to every aspect of the company’s work. To speed up the AI software workloads, Tesla has today presented its D1 Dojo custom application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for AI training.

There are currently many companies building ASICs for AI workloads. Everyone from countless number of start-ups, all the way to big players like Amazon, Baidu, Intel and NVIDIA. However, not everyone gets the formula right and not everyone can satisfy each workload perfectly. That is the reason why Tesla opted to develop its own ASIC for AI training purposes.

Bitcoin

Second largest US mortgage lender will accept crypto payments this year

August 30, 2021

Speaking during a conference call about the firm’s Q2 results, United Wholesale Mortgage CEO Mat Ishbia outlined plans to accept crypto payments this year.

By BRIAN QUARMBY

United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM), the second-largest United States-based mortgage lender, is planning to accept cryptocurrency payments this year starting with Bitcoin (BTC).

UWM CEO Mat Ishbia revealed the crypto plans on Monday in a conference call regarding the firm’s Q2 results — with the firm posting $138.7 million in net profits for the quarter.

Driverless vehicles

Waymo building autonomous trucking hub in Dallas-Fort Worth

August 30, 2021

The new Texas facility will help expand Waymo Via’s presence in the region and advance development of its transfer hub shipping model.

By Antuan Goodwin

Ryder will help Waymo Via to manage and service its fleet of autonomous trucks and help to develop the transfer hub facilities.Waymo

Waymo is building a new dedicated trucking hub in Texas’ Dallas-Fort Worth area. The facility will serve as the base of Waymo Via, its trucking and local delivery unit, and its operations throughout the southeast United States. The news is coupled with the announcement of a new partnership with Ryder trucking and fleet management to support Waymo’s fleet of autonomous trucks nationwide.

Bolstered by its previously announced partnership with Daimler Trucks to develop an SAE Level 4 autonomous truck platform, Waymo Via has since expanded testing to bring the fifth-generation Waymo Driver AV tech from its passenger vehicles to large Class 8 trucks for commercial shipping. It even landed itself a contract with J.B. Hunt to haul customers’ freight between Fort Worth and Houston.

The new nine-acre South Dallas hub is yet another big investment in autonomous trucking in Texas and will serve as Waymo Via’s primary operations center in the state. Built from the ground up to accommodate today’s commercial autonomous operations and testing, as well as Waymo’s future plans to build a network of autonomous trucking transfer hubs, the facility will help connect with Waymo Via’s Phoenix, Arizona operations center to expand the brand’s presence in the southeastern region.