Lifeboat Foundation

Standard image sensors, like the billion or so already installed in practically every smartphone in use today, capture light intensity and color. Relying on common, off-the-shelf sensor technology—known as CMOS—these cameras have grown smaller and more powerful by the year and now offer tens-of-megapixels resolution. But they’ve still seen in only two dimensions, capturing images that are flat, like a drawing—until now.

Researchers at Stanford University have created a new approach that allows standard image sensors to see light in three dimensions. That is, these common cameras could soon be used to measure the distance to objects.

The engineering possibilities are dramatic. Measuring distance between objects with light is currently possible only with specialized and expensive lidar —short for “light detection and ranging”—systems. If you’ve seen a self-driving car tooling around, you can spot it right off by the hunchback of technology mounted to the roof. Most of that gear is the car’s lidar crash-avoidance system, which uses lasers to determine distances between objects.

Tesla released production numbers for the first quarter after a record-setting close to 2021.

Will it be the next Black Hawk?

NASHVILLE March 31, 2022 — After three years of proving its transformational flight capabilities, the Lockheed Martin Sikorsky-Boeing SB1 DEFIANT® helicopter arrived in Nashville this week to give U.S. Army Aviators a first-hand look at this impressive aircraft at the Army Aviation Association of America’s annual summit.

Army aviators at the summit will be able to see how Team DEFIANT is revolutionizing Future Vertical Lift, one of the Army’s top modernization priorities, with a focus on transforming the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft program’s capabilities, production and sustainment resulting in lower-life cycle costs. The result is DEFIANT X® a complete weapon system that builds on the handling qualities and capabilities proven by the team’s technology demonstrator, SB1 DEFIANT®.

Continue reading “SB>1 DEFIANT Helicopter Completes Long-Endurance Flight to Nashville” »

The study found that if such a system were put in place nationwide, 94 percent of human operator hours may be affected, which could account for as many as 500,000 jobs.

In a situation where automation is restricted only to Sun Belt states, as rough weather poses a challenge to automation, about 10 percent of worker operator hours will be affected. If automation is deployed nationwide only during the spring and summer months, about half the nation’s trucking hours could go driverless.

“I think the most surprising thing there was that everyone we spoke to basically said ‘yeah, this can be done,’” Vaishnav said.

Ever wondered what to do with old cooking oil? It turns out it could power the world’s largest passenger airliner.

Airbus performed the first-ever A380 flight powered by 100 percent Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) derived mainly from cooking oil and other waste fats, a press statement reveals.

Tesla has opened its “longest Supercharger station in the world” through a growing partnership with a French supermarket company. There are larger, bigger Supercharger stations in the world, but apparently, there are none longer. Tesla is currently growing its Supercharger network at an impressive rate. The automaker went from 23,277 Superchargers at 2,564 stations at […].

Engineers have discovered a way to more than double the lifespan of batteries used in smartphones and electric cars.

The battery breakthrough was successfully demonstrated by researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia, who increased the lifespan of a lithium-ion (li-ion) battery from several hundred charge/ discharge cycles, to more than 1,000.

“Our process will increase the lifespan of batteries in many things, from smartphones and laptops, to power tools and electric vehicles,” said Professor Lianzhou Wang from the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology.

Kyte’s Tesla Model 3 subscription aims to remove some of the headaches of car buying and leasing. A 3-month term costs $1,350 per month.

A 50-year-old woman was buried with a unique “male” pendant.