Norway’s electric vehicle adoption rate is so far ahead of most countries that it gives us glimpses into the future of bigger markets – sometimes even decades ahead of time.
Now it is starting to show signs of demand for gasoline and diesel slowing down as electric vehicles are taking over.
The technology could be used at airport security instead of fingerprinting and eye-scanning. It can successfully verify an individual simply by analysing the footstep 3D and time-based data.
The AI system, developed by researchers at University of Manchester in the UK and University of Madrid in Spain, correctly identified an individual almost 100 percent of the time, with just a 0.7 error rate.
Physical biometrics, such as fingerprints, facial recognition and retinal scans, are currently more commonly used for security purposes. However, so-called behavioural biometrics, such as gait recognition, also capture unique signatures delivered by a person’s natural behavioural and movement patterns.
Continue reading “Scientists develop AI systems that can identify people” »
Hyperloop Transport Technologies (HTT) has brokered agreements with the North Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency and the Illinois Department of Transportation for feasibility studies pertaining to its mass transit technology. This work will determine whether or not it’s practical to construct a route linking Cleveland with Chicago.
HTT CEO Dirk Ahlhorn described the collaboration as the “first real public-private partnership to bring Hyperloop travel to the US,” according to a report from Tech Crunch. If it comes to pass, the Hyperloop would allow passengers to travel between the two cities in just 28 minutes.
Car dealerships in Nordic countries actively discourage consumers from buying electric vehicles, researchers who conducted an undercover investigation said Monday.
Their findings, published in the peer-reviewed Nature Energy, reveal an overlooked barrier to the sale of electric vehicles, which are expected to play a key role in lowering CO2 emissions and curbing global warming.
Posing as prospective buyers, the researchers made 126 enquiries at 82 dealerships in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Finland.
Continue reading “Dealerships trash talk electric cars: study” »
A chance to switch to renewable sources for heating, electricity and fuel, while also providing new opportunities for several industries to produce large numbers of renewable products. This is the verdict of researchers from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, who now, after 10 years of energy research into gasification of biomass, see an array of new technological achievements.
“The potential is huge! Using only the already existing Swedish energy plants, we could produce renewable fuels equivalent to 10 percent of the world’s aviation fuel, if such a conversion were fully implemented,” says Henrik Thunman, Professor of Energy Technology at Chalmers.
How to implement a switch from fossil-fuels to renewables is a tricky issue for many industries. For heavy industries, such as oil refineries, or the paper and pulp industry, it is especially urgent to start moving, because investment cycles are so long. At the same time, it is important to get the investment right because you may be forced to replace boilers or facilities in advance, which means major financial costs. Thanks to long-term strategic efforts, researchers at Sweden´s Chalmers University of Technology have now paved the way for radical changes, which could be applied to new installations, as well as be implemented at thousands of existing plants around the globe.
Continue reading “Advanced biofuels can be produced extremely efficiently” »
Red is the highest level of alert to aviation, meaning that either an eruption is forecast to be imminent with significant emission of ash into the atmosphere likely — as is the case currently in Hawaii — or an eruption is underway with significant emission of ash into the atmosphere. Either way, this could mean disruptions are possible in aviation around the big island of Hawaii for the foreseeable future, depending on what happens.
Ash clouds from volcanoes can clog the engines of airplanes and cause them to malfunction — or stop working altogether. According to this article from the World Organization of Volcano Observatories:
