Company Thinks “Social Robots” Needed During Pandemic
January 26th, 2021I only posted this because the video is so cringe inducing that you shouldn’t miss it.
Via: Reuters:
“Social robots like me can take care of the sick or elderly,” Sophia says as she conducts a tour of her lab in Hong Kong. “I can help communicate, give therapy and provide social stimulation, even in difficult situations.”
‘Dark Money’ Helped Pave Joe Biden’s Path to the White House
January 25th, 2021Via: Bloomberg:
President Joe Biden benefited from a record-breaking amount of donations from anonymous donors to outside groups backing him, meaning the public will never have a full accounting of who helped him win the White House.
Biden’s winning campaign was backed by $145 million in so-called dark money donations, a type of fundraising Democrats have decried for years. Those fundraising streams augmented Biden’s $1.5 billion haul, in itself a record for a challenger to an incumbent president.
StoreDot: What’s the Technology Behind a Five-Minute Charge Battery?
January 24th, 2021Via: Ars Technica:
As anyone who’s plugged in a low-charge laptop while it’s sitting on their lap knows, charging a battery produces a lot of heat. Charging it faster produces even more. To deal with this heat, StoreDot is essentially producing a diffuse battery with lots of space in between individual cells, as you can see at the four-minute mark of this video (embedded below). The cells have significant gaps between them, and the battery housing has holes that allow airflow between them. It’s charged in a stand with fans that force air through the battery to keep the heat under control.
Anybody could do that with existing battery technology, but there’s a very obvious cost: a much lower energy density, meaning a battery has to be much larger to hold the same amount of charge. StoreDot is compensating by working on technology that allows a much higher charge density, which offsets the lower density of materials. In the end, the battery should hold similar amounts of charge per volume as existing batteries, despite having less battery material present.
Lack of Sleep, Stress Can Lead to Symptoms Resembling Concussion
January 24th, 2021Via: Ohio State University:
A new study suggests that a lot of people might be going through life with symptoms that resemble concussion – a finding supporting researchers’ argument that athletes recovering from a brain injury should be assessed and treated on a highly individualized basis.
In the national study, between 11% and 27% of healthy college athletes with no history of a recent concussion reported combinations of symptoms that met criteria for post-concussion syndrome (PCS) as defined by an international classification system. Among the nearly 31,000 student-athletes surveyed, three factors stood out as the most likely to predict PCS-like symptoms: lack of sleep, pre-existing mental health problems and stress.
Military Intelligence Buys Location Data Instead of Getting Warrants, Memo Shows
January 24th, 2021Via: Ars Technica:
The Defense Intelligence Agency, which provides military intelligence to the Department of Defense, confirmed in a memo that it purchases “commercially available” smartphone location data to gather information that would otherwise require use of a search warrant.
The DIA “currently provides funding to another agency that purchases commercially available geolocation metadata aggregated from smartphones,” the agency wrote in a memo (PDF) to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), first obtained by the New York Times.
The Supreme Court held in its 2018 Carpenter v. United States ruling that the government needs an actual search warrant to collect an individual’s cell-site location data. “When the Government tracks the location of a cell phone it achieves near perfect surveillance, as if it had attached an ankle monitor to the phone’s user,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority in his opinion. “The retrospective quality of the data here gives police access to a category of information otherwise unknowable.”
The reality of the market, however, has created a big fat loophole: There are countless entities on the private market that scoop up, collate, and resell all kinds of personal data from basically everyone in the country. So instead of doing their own searches, law enforcement agencies are just buying the data they want.
Futuristic Sleeping Pods for Homeless People Installed in German City
January 23rd, 2021Via: Independent:
Windproof and waterproof sleep pods have been installed in the streets of a German city in order to house the homeless.
The wood and steel cabins, which can fit up to two people, protect against the cold, wind, and humidity. They also guarantee fresh air circulation.
The pods were introduced to the city of Ulm, 75 miles west of Munich, on 8 January in parks and at other places where homeless people sleep, a city spokesman said.
Britain: Conservative MP Calls for Nationwide Rollout of Vitamin D Tablets to People At-Risk from Covid-19
January 23rd, 2021Via: Daily Mail:
‘Sadly, with the Government’s programme for the clinically extremely vulnerable, the supplementation falls far short of this.’
He explains the Government is supplying 100 international units of vitamin D. One microgram of vitamin D equates to 40 international units.
Mr Davis says the existing programme is a ‘small step in the right direction’ but is merely a ‘drop in the ocean’.
‘What is needed to provide adequate protection against Covid-19 is a significantly higher dose, up to 4,000 units a day.
‘Particularly for those vulnerable groups that tend to be deficient in the vitamin, namely the elderly, the ethnic minorities and those suffering from a number of medical conditions.’
More: Over 200 Scientists & Doctors Call For Increased Vitamin D Use To Combat COVID-19
Nikkei Claims Toyota Will Unveil Solid State Battery EV In 2021
January 23rd, 2021This is from December.
Via: Nikkei:
A trip of 500 km on one charge. A recharge from zero to full in 10 minutes. All with minimal safety concerns. The solid-state battery being introduced by Toyota promises to be a game changer not just for electric vehicles but for an entire industry.
The technology is a potential cure-all for the drawbacks facing electric vehicles that run on conventional lithium-ion batteries, including the relatively short distance traveled on a single charge as well as charging times. Toyota plans to be the first company to sell an electric vehicle equipped with a solid-state battery in the early 2020s. The world’s largest automaker will unveil a prototype next year.
The electric vehicles being developed by Toyota will have a range more than twice the distance of a vehicle running on a conventional lithium-ion battery under the same conditions. All accomplished without sacrificing interior space in even the most compact vehicle.
Right On Cue For Biden, WHO Admits High-Cycle PCR Tests Produce COVID False Positives
January 21st, 2021Via: ZeroHedge:
What I have referred to as the “casedemic” since September will be magically solved just in time for Joe Biden to look like a hero. For doing absolutely nothing.
“Salute the Marines”
January 21st, 2021Biden appears to get a command through an earpiece to salute the U.S. Marines at the door ahead of him. Instead of saluting them, he says out loud, “Salute the Marines.”
Via: C-SPAN Clip on YouTube:
