Lifeboat Foundation

If the company can pull it off, Starlink would be faster than many ground-based gigabit broadband networks.

Researchers from Harvard University have 3D printed a school of soft robotic fish that are capable of swimming in complex patterns without the aid of Wi-Fi or GPS.

Inspired by the distinctive reef-dwelling surgeonfish, the team’s ‘Bluebots’ feature four fins for precision navigation, and a system of LEDs and cameras that enable them to swarm without colliding. The self-sufficiency of the tiny bots could make them ideal for ecological monitoring applications, in areas that wouldn’t otherwise be accessible to humans.

Continue reading “Harvard scientists 3D print swarm of ‘Bluebot’ synchronized soft robotic fish” »

The latest Starlink satellites launched on Jan. 24 are equipped with laser links, and all Starlink satellites launched next year will be equipped with laser inter-satellite links, Elon Musk, SpaceX chief engineer confirmed on Twitter.

“All sats launched next year will have laser links. Only our polar sats have lasers this year and are v [version] 0.9,” Musk tweeted on Monday.

A Twitter user noticed a difference in a photo of the stack of 10 Starlink satellites deployed on Sunday’s Transporter-1 rideshare mission, and asked Musk if an object that looked like a black pipe was lasers, which he confirmed.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully completed a mission to deploy 143 spacecraft and satellites into orbit on Sunday, after which the rocket returned safely to a sea-based landing pad.

The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket took flight on its ‘Transporter-1′ mission after weather considerations caused the planned launch on Saturday to be scrapped.

Continue reading “SpaceX launches 143 satellites, successfully completes record-setting mission” »

Wow…even I was amazed by these stats and timeline… and I am an unapologetic optimist and futurist who wants to live forever lol.

This video is a synopsis of our research report “Rethinking Energy 2020–2030: 100% Solar, Wind, and Batteries is Just the Beginning” that was published on October 27th, 2020 and is available for download free of charge from our RethinkX website https://www.rethinkx.com/energy.

Continue reading “Rethinking Energy 2020-2030: 100% Solar, Wind, and Batteries is Just the Beginning” »

STARLINK.

Space-based internet service is poised to revolutionize the internet and bring high-speed connectivity to countless communities worldwide. Programs like SpaceX’s Starlink paint a picture of a bright future for the citizens of the world. Like many revolutionary technological advances, there is a dark side to Starlink.

The constellation of hundreds (and eventually thousands) of satellites reflect light back to the Earth, impinging on the darkness of the skies for professional astronomers and stargazers alike. Astronomers report images and data being disrupted by bright streaks left from the satellites passing through their observational fields of view. One potential solution to this issue is applying a dark coating to the reflective antennae on the satellites’ ground-facing side. In January of 2020, SpaceX launched the experimental DarkSat to test the effectiveness of such a coating. Astronomers around the world observed the new satellite. In December of 2020, a team from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) released a paper in The Astrophysical Journal showing detailed measurements of the efficacy of DarkSat.

So what were the results of the study? Is DarkSat an effective solution to the astronomical problem posed by Starlink? As is often the case in such studies, the answer is a little complicated.

Researchers at Harvard University have recently devised a system based on Wi-Fi sensing that could enhance the collaboration between robots operating in unmapped environments. This system, presented in a paper pre-published on arXiv, can essentially emulate antenna arrays in the air as a robot moves freely in a 2-D or 3D environment.

“The main goal of our paper was to leverage arbitrary 3D trajectories for a robot (UAV or UGV) equipped with an on-board trajectory estimation sensor,” Ninad Jadhav, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told TechXplore. “This allows a Wi-Fi-signal-receiving robot to estimate the spatial direction (in azimuth and elevation) of other neighboring robots by capturing all the wireless signal paths traveling between the transmitting and receiving robot (which we call AOA profile). Additionally, we also characterized how the trajectory shape impacts the AOA profile using Cramer Rao bound.”

In their previous studies, Jadhav and his colleagues focused on robot collaboration scenarios in which the robots followed 2-D trajectories with a limited set of geometries (e.g., linear or curved). The new system they created, on the other hand, is applicable to scenarios where robots are moving freely, following a wider range of trajectories.

The Man Said That His Country Has Been In Existence For 1000 Years And Was A Little Puzzled Why His Country Was Called Andorra On The Map.

It was July 1954 when a smartly dressed man arrives at Haneda Airport in Tokyo, Japan. Much like other passengers, he makes his way to customs. But whatever happened from this point onwards have left all puzzled and concerned. When questioned by the customs officers, the mysterious passenger said he was from Taured, also referred to as Taured Mystery. The mystery man claimed that it was the third time he was visiting Japan from his country. But, to the surprise of officers, they couldn’t find any country named Taured. The primary language of the man, described as Caucasian looking with a beard, was French. However, she was purportedly speaking Japanese and many other languages as well.

Officers were perplexed because they had never heard about any such country. The passport of the man was issued by of course the Taured. The passport looked authentic but the place was not recognized.

Continue reading “Taured Mystery: The Man Who Vanished As Mysteriously As He Came” »