Interesting.
New multi-mission unmanned will support ground forces in the field while minimizing threats to human lives.
Altana AI, a startup building a database for global supply chain networks, today announced that it raised $15 million in a series A funding round led by GV with participation from Floating Point, Ridgeline Partners, Amadeus Capital Partners, and Schematic Ventures. The proceeds, which bring the company’s total raised to $22 million to date, will be used to further develop Altana’s data and AI systems and launch new machine learning and network analysis tools, according to CEO Evan Smith.
Trade wars, the rise of ecommerce, pandemic supply chain shocks, and sustainability concerns are driving fundamental changes to supply chain networks and global trade flows. Nearly 75% of companies report supply chain disruptions in some capacity due to pandemic-related transportation restrictions. And in a recent IBM survey, 40% of executives stressed the need for spare capacity to weather future crises.
Altana’s product aims to solve these challenges with a platform that connects and learns from billions of supply chain data points. It answers questions about products, shipments, companies, and networks, filtering out illicit trade and targeting bad actors and security threats across global commerce networks.
Skycharge, developed by Green Motion and Pipistrel, has recently been approved by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) as the world’s first OEM-independent electric aircraft charging station.
Pipistrel’s Velis Electro aircraft had already become the first electric aircraft to receive a type certificate from EASA in June last year. The approval of Skycharge is another important milestone on the way to environmentally sustainable aviation.
Skycharge is based on Eaton’s proprietary DC charging technology. The charging infrastructure for electric aircraft and eVTOL (electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing) aircraft offers exceptional conversion efficiency (over 96%), compactness and power density.
The Hermeus jet has a projected top speed of Mach 5.5—or 4,219 mph—making it the fastest reusable jet on the planet.
Magnets, typically using rare earth metals like neodymium, are found at the heart of most electric vehicle motors. It’s nice to have a permanent source of powerful rare earth magnetism in your rotor, because using powered coils instead means you have to somehow transfer electricity from the battery through to the coils in a spinning rotor. That means you’ll need a sliding point of contact, and sliding points of contact develop wear and tear over time.
Permanent magnets, though, come with their own baggage. Ninety seven percent of the world’s rare earth metal supply comes out of China, and state control over such a crucial resource across a number of high-tech industries has been a serious issue in the past. Official accounts differ about why China decided to restrict rare earth exports back at the start of the decade, as official accounts tend to do, but the result either way was a 750-percent leap in neodymium prices and a 2,000-percent leap in dysprosium prices.
Could these metals be produced elsewhere? Yes. They’re not as rare as the name might suggest. But wherever they’re mined, the only way to economically turn them into magnets is to send them to China for processing – nowhere else in the world is set up for the task, and nobody can compete against China’s minimal labor costs and environmental regulations.
DSEI 2021: #Rheinmetall experiments with quadripedal UGVs #DSEI2021 #UGVs
Rheinmetall presented a Q-UGV nicknamed Lassie that it is experimenting with at DSEI 2021. (Janes/Nicholas Fiorenza)
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Is Elon right Eric Klien?
It’s been nearly five years since Musk first announced the full self driving feature and very little progress has been made on it.
Get ready.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company will use personal driving data to determine whether owners who have paid for its controversial “Full Self-Driving” software can access the latest beta version that promises more automated driving functions.
Musk tweeted late Thursday night that the FSD Beta v10.0.1 software update, which has already been pushed out to a group of select owners, will become more widely available starting September 24.
We haven’t seen many bikes that combine as many disruptive tech ideas as the WMC250EV electric land speed record challenger that was revealed in June, and now that machine has shown it’s for real. The bike has flown through its first testing stage to prove it’s on target for the goal of hitting more than 250 mph during a record attempt next year.
White Motorcycle Concepts’ radical 250EV land speed racer is hitting its testing goals with flying colors, and is on track to attempt a world record in 2022.
