Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Super-Hard Metal ‘Four Times Tougher Than Titanium’
July 24th, 2016Via: BBC: A super-hard metal has been made in the laboratory by melting together titanium and gold. The alloy is the hardest known metallic substance compatible with living tissues, say US physicists. The material is four times harder than pure titanium and has applications in making longer-lasting medical implants, they say. Conventional knee and hip […]
Inside the Test Flight of Facebook’s First Internet Drone
July 21st, 2016Via: The Verge: In its first flight, Aquila exceeded engineers’ expectations for its energy efficiency. More test flights are planned, aimed at flying Aquila “faster, higher, and longer,” says Jay Parikh, Facebook’s vice president of engineering, in a blog post today. And then Aquila will have its next big test: flying with the “payload,” as […]
iPhone Case to Monitor Device’s Radios for Surveillance Activity
July 21st, 2016Of course, inexpensive signal blocking pouches can prevent phones from communicating. You have to test them to make sure that they’re actually blocking the signals. See: Black Hole Faraday Bags, for example. This thing below, however, will tell you when something dodgy is happening. (Much better than my warm-to-the-touch-dead-battery indicator.) Via: Wired: A mockup of […]
Tesla: Master Plan, Part Deux
July 20th, 2016Musk’s hopes and dreams may or may not happen, but I enjoyed reading this anyway. While some people out there seem to have full time jobs bashing Tesla, I think of Musk as a hero. There would be virtually no movement toward mass adoption of electric vehicles if it wasn’t for Tesla. Now, the whole […]
Amazon Wants Drone Docking Stations
July 19th, 2016Via: CNBC: Amazon has been awarded a patent for “docking stations” for its delivery drones that will be built on tall structures such as lampposts or churches and allow the unmanned machines to recharge and pick up packages. “The docking stations may incorporate a number of features to enable UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) to fly […]
Computer Memory Technology Uses Single Atoms to Store Data
July 18th, 2016This atom-scale memory technology will probably ship around the same time that the Mr. Fusion does, but it’s an interesting read anyway. Back in the real world, the upcoming 3D XPoint (aka Optane) technology will become mainstream in a couple of years and that offers 1000x faster performance and 10x the density of existing SSDs. […]
‘Pokémon Go’: Government Surveillance App?
July 14th, 2016For commentary on this, I’d mainly offer my 2012 piece: Ingress: Google’s Strange New Game Flash forward to 2016 and Pokémon Go offers the same soft control, but now with mass appeal. You might be thinking, mass appeal? What? With 10-year-olds? It turns out that in the swipetarded zombie apocalypse, “Pokémon Go tops Twitter’s daily […]
Autonomous Robots to Begin Delivering Food and Parcels in Europe
July 6th, 2016Via: Bloomberg: The next time you order food using the delivery app Just Eat in London, don’t be surprised if it’s brought to your door by a small, six-wheeled robot. London-listed Just Eat Plc. will join German retail chain Metro AG, logistics company Hermes Group, and U.K. food delivery startup Pronto Technology Ltd., in trialing […]
Robot-Made Burgers Coming to San Francisco
July 1st, 2016Via: TechInsider: A robot-powered burger joint is coming to San Francisco. In 2012, secretive robotics startup Momentum Machines debuted a machine that could crank out 400 made-to-order hamburgers in an hour. It’s fully autonomous, meaning the robot can slice toppings, grill a patty, and assemble and bag the burger without any help from humans. The […]
Florida: First Person Killed in a Tesla Car in Self-Drive Mode Was a Former Navy SEAL
June 30th, 2016Nexu’s Owner: Owner and founder: Joshua D. Brown I started Nexu Innovations with two things in mind: to make a difference and to have fun. When I look at the world around me I see what it could be. I focus on what could be done to make this world a better place. I then […]
