Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Amazon Wants Alexa to Move Into Your Apartment Before You Do
September 9th, 2020Via: Vice: On Thursday, Amazon announced a new program called Alexa for Residential that would make it cheaper for apartment complexes to integrate Alexa and Amazon devices into their rental units. This should come as no surprise, especially considering that the pandemic has allowed Amazon to grow even more entrenched in our daily lives. Before […]
Gravitricity: Gravity Energy Project to Generate Electricity by Plunging Heavy Weights Down Disused Mine Shafts
September 8th, 2020This seems like an interesting idea. It’s a bit like pumped hydro, but without the requirement of elevated water storage. Via: Newsweek: An energy project that will generate electrical power using gravity, by raising and lowering heavy weights down mine shafts, could spark into action next year. U.K.-based Gravitricity said in a press release that […]
Nikola and GM to Make 900-Horsepower Electric Truck
September 8th, 2020Via: Yahoo Finance: Nikola (NKLA) and GM (GM) are teaming up to take on Tesla’s cybertruck. The electric truck startup announced Tuesday it has selected GM to be its manufacturing parter for its electric pickup truck dubbed the Badger. The Badger will use GM’s widely acclaimed Ultium battery technology. Additionally, Nikola will hand over $2 […]
The Air Force Just Tested “Robot Dogs” For Use In Base Security
September 8th, 2020Bonus: Another one for your Starlink Is Mainly for Rural Internet Access *wink* file folder. Via: The Warzone: They look like they were cast straight from an episode of Black Mirror, and eventually, their mission could be similar in some ways, but for now, robot dogs are stretching their legs in the big test exercise […]
U.S. Government Asks Mitre Corp to Build Creepy Surveillance Technologies
September 7th, 2020Via: Forbes: Among the government’s wilder Mitre orders: a prototype tool that can hack into smartwatches, fitness trackers and home thermometers for the purposes of homeland security; software to collect human fingerprints from social media websites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for the FBI; support in building what the FBI calls the biggest database of […]
Consumer Reports: Tesla’s Self Driving Features Are a Mess
September 6th, 2020Via: Consumer Reports: Most features within Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Capability suite worked inconsistently, including the Autopark self-parking system that has been around for several years. Sometimes it would recognize a parking space as suitable, and we’d park in it. But when we drove by the same space again later, it was as if the parking […]
DHS Braces For ‘Potential EMP Attack’ As Presidential Election Nears
September 5th, 2020Via: ZeroHedge: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a new report warning about a “potential” electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack against the U.S. DHS’s warning published Thur. (Sept. 2), or about 60 days until the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 3, indicates there are “evolving threats against the American homeland, most recently highlighting efforts […]
Starlink Engineer/Spokeswoman Confirms Optical Backhaul Operational on Two Satellites
September 3rd, 2020Wow. I thought that this capability was years away, even for testing. Nope. Via: CNBC: Tice also said that the company recently conducted a test to see if it can connect two satellites in orbit with what SpaceX calls “space lasers.” Also known as intersatellite links, the space lasers would imporve the Starlink network by […]
Tesla Co-Founder JB Straubel Building “Reverse Gigafactory” to Recycle Used Batteries
September 3rd, 2020Via: Electrive: So far there has been much speculation, but little official information about Redwood Materials, the recycling start-up founded by ex-Tesla CTO JB Straubel. Now Straubel has given more details about the plans of Redwood Materials in an interview. Straubel told the Wall Street Journal that the company’s goal is a “reverse gigafactory”. In […]
Mass Surveillance Program Exposed by Snowden Was Illegal
September 3rd, 2020Via: Reuters: Seven years after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the mass surveillance of Americans’ telephone records, an appeals court has found the program was unlawful – and that the U.S. intelligence leaders who publicly defended it were not telling the truth. In a ruling handed down on Wednesday, […]
