Tesla Battery Researcher Claims They Doubled Lifetime of Batteries in Tesla’s Products 4 Years Ahead of Time
May 9th, 2017Update: Professor Jeff Dahn’s Talk
If you have any interest in lithium ion batteries, this is very definitely worth your time.
—
Woh.
I wonder how long it will be before Tesla slaps a 20 year warranty on their energy storage products…
Via: Electrek:
“In the description of the [Tesla] project that we sent to NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) to get matching funds from the government for the project, I wrote down the goal of doubling the lifetime of the cells used in the Tesla products at the same upper cutoff voltage. We exceeded that in round one. OK? So that was the goal of the project and it has already been exceeded. We are not going to stop – obviously – we have another four years to go. We are going to go as far as we can.”
Europe: How Billions Vanish Into the Security Industry Black Hole
May 9th, 2017Via: The Correspondent:
The European Union spends billions on research into advanced technologies meant to make society safer. But our investigation – with 22 journalists in 11 countries – shows that the generous subsidies are mostly good for one thing: filling the coffers of the security industry.
Trump Fires Comey
May 9th, 2017
Via: Independent:
FBI Director James Comey – who was leading an investigation into alleged links between Donald Trump’s team and Russia – has been fired by the US President.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said in a statement that Mr Comey has been “terminated and removed from office.” Mr Trump acted on “clear recommendations” from Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
However, Democratic Senators were quick to point out the constitutional crisis that has been created by Mr Trump removing a man in charge of investigating him. Senator Dick Durbin said on the Senate floor that the firing of Mr Comey raises questions “as to whether the Russian interference in the last presidential election… will also be investigated by the FBI.”
More Robots, Fewer Jobs
May 8th, 2017Via: Bloomberg:
Are you about to be replaced by a robot? The question has broad implications for the U.S. economy, especially the manufacturing sector. Industries that robotize tend to increase output. But robots can have dire consequences for workers.
Two economists recently concluded that both jobs and wages fall in parts of the U.S. where more robots are installed. The March 2017 study by Daron Acemoglu of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University shows the commuting zones—i.e., local labor markets—where robot installations have grown the most.
Unmanned U.S. Air Force Space Plane Lands After Secret, Two-Year Mission
May 7th, 2017Via: Reuters:
The U.S. military’s experimental X-37B space plane landed on Sunday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, completing a classified mission that lasted nearly two years, the Air Force said.
The unmanned X-37B, which resembles a miniature space shuttle, touched down at 7:47 a.m. EDT (1147 GMT) on a runway formerly used for landings of the now-mothballed space shuttles, the Air Force said in an email.
The Boeing-built space plane blasted off in May 2015 from nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard an Atlas 5 rocket built by United Launch Alliance, a partnership between Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) and Boeing Co (BA.N).
The X-37B, one of two in the Air Force fleet, conducted unspecified experiments for more than 700 days while in orbit. It was the fourth and lengthiest mission so far for the secretive program, managed by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office.
Macron Elected French President
May 7th, 2017Via: AFP:
Pro-European centrist Emmanuel Macron resoundingly won France’s landmark presidential election, first estimates showed Sunday, heading off a fierce challenge from the far-right in a pivotal vote for the future of the divided country and Europe.
The victory caps an extraordinary rise for the 39-year-old former investment banker, who will become the country’s youngest-ever leader.
He has promised to heal a fractured and demoralised country after a vicious campaign that has exposed deep economic and social divisions, as well as tensions around identity and immigration.
Initial estimates showed Macron winning between 65.5 percent and 66.1 percent of ballots ahead of Le Pen on between 33.9 percent and 34.5 percent.
Unknown three years ago, Macron is now poised to become one of Europe’s most powerful leaders, bringing with him a hugely ambitious agenda of political and economic reform for France and the European Union.
The result will resonate worldwide and particularly in Brussels and Berlin where leaders will breathe a sigh of relief that Le Pen’s anti-EU, anti-globalisation programme has been defeated.
After Britain’s vote last year to leave the EU and Donald Trump’s victory in the US, the French election had been widely watched as a test of how high a tide of right-wing nationalism would rise.
Le Pen, 48, had portrayed the ballot as a contest between Macron and the “globalists” — in favour of open trade, immigration and shared sovereignty — and her “patriotic” vision of strong borders and national identities.
The Military is Using Human Brain Waves to Teach Robots How to Shoot
May 6th, 2017Via: Government Executive:
Modern sensors can see farther than humans. Electronic circuits can shoot faster than nerves and muscles can pull a trigger. Humans still outperform armed robots in knowing what to shoot at — but new research funded in part by the Army may soon narrow that gap.
Researchers from DCS Corp and the Army Research Lab fed datasets of human brain waves into a neural network — a type of artificial intelligence — which learned to recognize when a human is making a targeting decision. They presented their paper on it at the annual Intelligent User Interface conference in Cyprus in March.
Why is this a big deal? Machine learning relies on highly structured data, numbers in rows that software can read. But identifying a target in the chaotic real world is incredibly difficult for computers. The human brain does it easily, structuring data in the form of memories, but not in a language machines can understand. It’s a problem that the military has been grappling with for years.
…
The researchers hope their new neural net will enable experiments in which a computer can easily understand when a soldier is evaluating targets in a virtual scenario, as opposed to having to spend lots of time teaching the system to understand how to structure different individuals’ data, eye movements, their P300 responses, etc. The goal, one day, is a neural net that can learn instantaneously, continuously, and in real-time, by observing the brainwaves and eye movement of highly trained soldiers doing their jobs.
Potential for Ultrasonic Beacons to Trigger Smartphone Apps
May 4th, 2017Apparently, you have to open some app for the this to happen:
The situation isn’t that worrisome, as users have to open an app with the Shopkick SDK for the beacon to be picked up.
Even so, here’s another one for your already herniating Mobile Phones Are Creepy as Hell file folder.
Via: Bleeping Computer:
A team of researchers from the Brunswick Technical University in Germany has discovered an alarming number of Android applications that employ ultrasonic tracking beacons to track users and their nearby environment.
Their research paper focused on the technology of ultrasound cross-device tracking (uXDT) that became very popular in the last three years.
uXDT is the practice of advertisers hiding ultrasounds in their ads. When the ad plays on a TV or radio, or some ad code runs on a mobile or computer, it emits ultrasounds that are picked up by the microphone of nearby laptops, desktops, tablets or smartphones.
SDKs embedded in apps installed on those devices relay the beacon back to the online advertiser, who then knows that the user of TV “x” is also the owner of smartphone “Y” and links their two previous advertising profiles together, creating a broader picture of the user’s interests, device portfolio, home, and even family members.
Related: More Android Phones Than Ever Are Covertly Listening for Inaudible Sounds in Ads
Tesla Loses $13,000 Per Car Made Ahead Of Model 3 Launch
May 4th, 2017*meh* Amazon lost money for years. Now look at it.
With Tesla, the Model 3 might be a make or break moment, but fear of repeating the Model X debacle was ingrained from the start. They might not blow it again.
That said, having to get that new assembly line up and running from nothing is no joke. Here, have some robots. Those were still in their shipping materials as of a few days ago.
I wouldn’t be surprised if multiple automation engineers read Cryptogon, so maybe they can let us know: Can all of that be set up into a functional automobile assembly line in less than three months, even assuming any number of guys working 24/7?
Via: ZeroHedge:
Finally, no matter how Tesla wants to spin it, the cash burn remains historic, and after the record nearly $1 billion in cash out the door in Q4, the company burned “only” $622 in freeh cash flow in Q1, the second most on record.
Research Credit: Duras
Puerto Rico Files for Biggest Ever U.S. Local Government Bankruptcy
May 4th, 2017Via: Reuters:
Puerto Rico announced a historic restructuring of its public debt on Wednesday, touching off what may be the biggest bankruptcy ever in the $3.8 trillion U.S. municipal bond market.
While it was not immediately clear just how much of Puerto Rico’s $70 billion of debt would be included in the bankruptcy filing, the case is sure to dwarf Detroit’s insolvency in 2013.
The move comes a day after several major creditors sued Puerto Rico over defaults its bonds.
Bankruptcy may not immediately change the day-to-day lives of Puerto Rico’s people, 45 percent of whom live in poverty, but it may lead to future cuts in pensions and worker benefits, and possibly a reduction in health and education services.
The island’s economy has been in recession for nearly 10 years, with an unemployment rate of about 11.0 percent, and the population has fallen by about 10 percent in the past decade.
