Lifeboat Foundation

They’re focusing on cargo transport instead of passengers. So they’re downsizing.

Virgin Hyperloop has fired 111 of its employees as it abandons the idea of making its system ready for passenger use. The Financial Times is reporting that the company is exclusively focusing on moving cargo, and has slashed almost half of its total workforce. A spokesperson confirmed to the paper that the shift in business was taking place, with supply chain issues and COVID contributing to the change.

Since its inception, the company has been developing its vacuum-tube system to carry both passengers and freight. One of the earliest concepts VH floated was an “inland port,” in which cargo vessels would put containers onto capsules that are shot inland before they’re processed. That way, the main logistics hub wouldn’t need to be beside the sea, and could instead be at the heart of a transit hub closer to customers.

Continue reading “Virgin Hyperloop lays off 111 staffers as it abandons plans for passenger transport” »

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Interior Urbanism describes interior spaces so large that they behave like cities. These kinds of constructions can develop either as an adoc growth over time, or as a planned and cohesively designed set of volumes. Each has its own opportunities and problems when it comes to efficiency and architectural integrity. This video explores both and uses Chicago’s Pedway and John Portman’s Hyatt Regency near O’Hare airport as examples. Stewart Hicks visits these examples, discusses the implications of bringing our urbanism indoors, and compares and contrasts the spatial qualities of each approach — the contingent and gritty urbanism of the Pedway, with the pristine perfection of the hotel lobby and conference center.

Continue reading “The Bewildering Architecture of Indoor Cities” »

We’ve seen many reports of a massive assortment of Tesla cars ready to leave Shanghai for global delivery. This doesn’t mean Tesla won’t also deliver in China.

Circa 2021

Entrepreneurs are devising innovative ways to reuse spent electric vehicle batteries. One promising idea is storing power from solar and wind farms.

The rising visibility of Ethical AI or AI Ethics is doing great good, meanwhile some believe it isn’t enough and a semblance of embracing Radical Ethical AI is appearing. This is closely examined, including for AI-based self-driving cars.

Has the prevailing tenor and attention of today’s widely emerging semblance of AI Ethics gotten into a veritable rut? Some seem to decidedly think so.

Let’s unpack this. You might generally be aware that there has been a rising tide of interest in the ethical ramifications of AI. This is often referred to as either AI Ethics or Ethical AI, which we’ll consider herein those two monikers as predominantly equivalent and interchangeable (I suppose some might quibble about that assumption, but I’d like to suggest that we not get distracted by the potential differences, if any, for the purposes of this discussion).

Some say that Moore’s Regulation, which tracks the exponential progress electronics during the last six a long time has stalled, and technological stagnation threatens. Mark Rosker, director of DARPA’s Microsystems Know-how Workplace (MTO), sees issues very in another way. In a new interview with Samuele Lilliu, he explains how the expansion described by Moore’s Regulation has been sustained by waves of innovation from DARPA and the way the following stage, what he calls the Fourth Wave, might be carried ahead by applied sciences his workplace is now creating.

The best model of Moore’s Regulation says that the variety of transistors on a silicon chip roughly doubles each two years. This was an commentary made by Gordon Moore – who later co-founded Intel – in 1965, and it proved to be remarkably correct. Yearly since then, an increasing number of highly effective computer systems and, later, laptops and smartphones have appeared in the marketplace. Low-cost chips have now grow to be important for vehicles, televisions, cameras and different units, which beforehand functioned with out electronics. They’re important throughout the financial system.

Continue reading “DARPA Goals To Preserve Moore’s Regulation Going — Right here’s How” »

At least four people have died across the region.

Elon Musk’s The Boring Company has submitted a proposal to construct a 6.2-mile underground transit system in Miami, Insider can reveal.

The North Miami Beach Loop would ferry Tesla vehicles between seven stations along State Road 826, between the Golden Glades Transit Center and Sunny Isles Beach at Newport Pier, according to the proposal, seen by Insider.

The Boring Company estimated that the loop would initially be able to carry more than 7,500 passengers per hour, and could be scaled to carry more than 15,000 per hour.

Tesla has announced that it has produced 1 million of its next-generation 4,680 battery cell at its pilot factory in California.

The announcement comes as Tesla is expected to start deliveries of its new Model Y equipped with its 4,680 cell and structural battery pack.

In 2020, Tesla unveiled its new 4,680 battery cell, a new tabless cylindrical cell in a much bigger format that the company claimed produces six times the power and five times the energy capacity while significantly reducing the cost.