Daimler Tests Self-Driving Truck on German Highway
October 2nd, 2015Via: AFP:
German automaker Daimler said it trialled a self-driving truck under real traffic conditions for the first time Friday, on a motorway in southern Germany.
The truck has smart systems including radars, cameras and active speed regulators and works without a human driver — although one has to be in the driver’s seat and take the wheel if necessary.
The standard Mercedes-Benz Actros, fitted with the intelligent “Highway Pilot” system, travelled 14 kilometres (about nine miles) on the A8 motorway, with a driver in the cabin but his hands off the wheel.
“Today’s premiere is a further important step towards the market maturity of autonomously driving trucks -– and towards the safe, sustainable road freight transport of the future,” said Wolfgang Bernhard, board member responsible for Daimler Trucks and Buses.
“Safe testing in real traffic is absolutely decisive for the development of this technology to market maturity. We are now able to proceed with this,” said Bernhard, who sat in the driver’s seat for the test.
Daimler unveiled the technology in May in the US state of Nevada, on the iconic Hoover Dam, an hour’s drive from Las Vegas.
The truck in Friday’s trial, the world’s first series-production autonomous truck, drove between Stuttgart and the town of Denkendorf in the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, where Daimler is headquartered.
A totally self-driving truck, without the need for human monitoring, is still a long way off.
Urban Barns
October 2nd, 2015I wonder what that power bill is each month?
Via: The National:
Related: Meanwhile in Japan
IBM Overcomes One of the Three Barriers to Viable Carbon Nanotube Transistors
October 2nd, 2015Via: MIT Technology Review:
For decades the semiconductor industry has been packing more and more silicon transistors onto each computer chip to keep steadily improving performance, but that process will soon reach its physical limits. Now researchers at IBM say a “major engineering breakthrough” gives reason to be optimistic that a promising alternative to silicon transistors—carbon nanotube transistors—will be ready in time to take silicon’s place.
Carbon nanotubes, tiny cylinders made of rolled-up, atom-thick sheets of carbon, have very attractive electrical and thermal properties and theoretically could form the basis of circuits that are much faster and more energy-efficient than today’s silicon ones. But several major manufacturing challenges stand in the way of commercial devices based on nanotube transistors. The IBM researchers say they’ve figured out how to overcome one of them: how to combine nanotubes with the metal contacts that deliver electric current.
“The U.S. Led ISIS Coalition”
October 2nd, 2015Your what hurts?
Via: CNN:
Russia Launches First Airstrike in Syria
September 30th, 2015Via: USA Today:
Russia launched its first airstrike in Syria on Wednesday, a U.S official confirmed to USA TODAY.
The news of the strike, around the city of Homs, came after Russia’s parliament granted President Vladimir Putin permission to launch airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria, where a civil war has been raging since 2011.
Health Benefits of Coffee a Recurring Theme in Harvard Research
September 30th, 2015haha I’m in my usual middle-of-the-night slog through the doom and just reading about coffee made me feel high and happy. Who knows or cares if the fancy Harvard people are right about coffee being some sort of health elixir.
Mmmm coffee.
Via: Harvard:
Coffee is everywhere, through history and across the world. And increasingly, science is demonstrating that its popularity is a good thing.
Harvard scientists have for years put coffee under the microscope. Last year, researchers announced they had discovered six new human genes related to coffee and reconfirmed the existence of two others. The long-running Nurses’ Health Study has found that coffee protects against type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Researchers are continuing to follow up on 2001 findings that it protects against Parkinson’s disease.
The work at Harvard is just part of an emerging picture of coffee as a potentially powerful elixir against a range of ailments, from cancer to cavities.
Apple Suddenly Banned an App That Maps U.S. Drone Strikes
September 29th, 2015Via: tech.mic:
Freelance journalist and data artist Josh Begley has been methodically recording U.S. military drone activity for years. Every week or so — whenever the strikes occur — Begley will post a news story from the @dronestream Twitter account, identifying when and where drone strikes have occurred before feeding the results into an app called Metadata+.
Sep 1, 2015: Two missiles struck a house, killing 6 people. Four others were wounded (Pakistan) http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/01/us-pakistan-drone-idUSKCN0R14RV20150901 …
But on Sunday, Dronestream tweeted that Metadata+, which sends out push notifications every time there is a U.S. drone strike, had been removed from the App Store after seven months of being openly available.
More Doctors Against Vaccines
September 28th, 2015Via: Organic Lifestyle Magazine:
Bad advice is everywhere, and it can stem from every profession, even the medical profession. History has taught us that there are times the experts are nearly unified in their advice and are still dead wrong. The reasoning has always been the same, that the benefits outweigh the risks. When you’re given bad medical advice, you run the risk while the benefits belong to the physician. Ultimately our health is too important to trust the experts without doing our own research.
The Average American Worker Earns Less Today Than 40 Years Ago
September 28th, 2015Via: FastCoexist:
Because most everything we buy gets more expensive over time, we have to earn more money each year just to maintain our existing standard of living. When we’re not given raises that keep up with this rate of inflation, we’re effectively suffering a pay cut.
That’s why many American workers are actually poorer today than four decades ago. They may be earning more money. But, in real terms, they’re getting less for it. Measured in 2014 dollars, the median male full-time worker made $50,383 last year against $53,294 in 1973, according to new U.S. Census Bureau figures.
NASA: Water Flows on Mars
September 28th, 2015Via: Guardian:
Liquid water runs down canyons and crater walls over the summer months on Mars, according to researchers who say the discovery raises the odds of the planet being home to some form of life.
The trickles leave long, dark stains on the Martian terrain that can reach hundreds of metres downhill in the warmer months, before they dry up in the autumn as surface temperatures drop.
Images taken from the Mars orbit show cliffs, and the steep walls of valleys and craters, streaked with summertime flows that in the most active spots combine to form intricate fan-like patterns.
Scientists are unsure where the water comes from, but it may rise up from underground ice or salty aquifers, or condense out of the thin Martian atmosphere.
“There is liquid water today on the surface of Mars,” Michael Meyer, the lead scientist on Nasa’s Mars exploration programme, told the Guardian. “Because of this, we suspect that it is at least possible to have a habitable environment today.”
