Lifeboat Foundation

Originally published on EV Obsession.

While it’s now widely realized that Google has been putting substantial amounts of its money into the development of autonomous driving technology over the last few years, it’s probably far less widely known that the Chinese equivalent of Google — Baidu, the top search engine company in China — has begun to do so as well.

Late last week, the company announced that it had formed a new self-driving vehicle team to be based in Silicon Valley — right in the same general “neighborhood” as Google, interestingly. The new team will be focused on the research, development, and real-world testing of autonomous technologies, according to a new press release.

Continue reading “Chinese Search Engine Giant Baidu Intent On Bringing Self-Driving Cars To Reality” »

My new Vice Motherboard article on environmentalism and why going green isn’t enough. Only radical technology can restore the world to a pristine condition—and that requires politicians not afraid of the future:

I’m worried that conservatives like Cruz will try to stop new technologies that will change our battle in combating a degrading Earth

But there are people who can save the endangered species on the planet. And they will soon dramatically change the nature of animal protection. Those people may have little to do with wildlife, but their genetics work holds the answer to stable animal population levels in the wild. In as little as five years, we may begin stocking endangered wildlife in places where poachers have hunted animals to extinction. We’ll do this like we stock trout streams in America. Why spend resources in a losing battle to save endangered wildlife from being poached when you can spend the same amount to boost animal population levels ten-fold? Maye even 100-fold. This type of thinking is especially important in our oceans, which we’ve bloody well fished to near death.

Continue reading “If You Care About the Earth, Vote for the Least Religious Presidential Candidate” »

Tomorrow’s cars will be all-electric, self-driving, connected to high-speed communications networks … and free.

And probably Chinese.

That, at least, is the vision of Jia Yueting, a billionaire entrepreneur and one of a new breed of Chinese who see their technology expertise re-engineering the automobile industry, and usurping Tesla Motors, a U.S. pioneer in premium electric vehicle (EV) making.

Continue reading “Chinese Billionaire Taking on Tesla With Cars He Hopes One Day Will Be Free” »

Companies from Detroit and Silicon Valley are teaming up to urge lawmakers to put self-driving cars on the street as fast as they can. Companies believe the technology can save many of the 33,000 who die in car accidents, although thousands of jobs may be lost.

Titled the Self-driving Coalition for Safer Streets, the new lobbying group is composed of Google, Ford, Uber, Volvo, and Lyft. The group’s entire goal is to advocate for self-driving technology at the federal level.

Former administration of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), David Strickland, will be leading the group.

Space is hot again.

Bradford Tousley, DARPA’s director of tactical technology, discusses DARPA’s XS-1 Space Plane and Phoenix programs, hypersonics, and more.

Vertical take-off has been around a long long time. Take a look at the Harrier Jet.

At 20 percent scale.

Continue reading “DARPA’s Vertical Takeoff/Landing X-Plane Takes Its First Flight” »

Turning on Quantum properties onto a cup of coffee. First step; should be interesting in what researchers discover especially around teleporting. Imaging you’re Dominos pizza with a teleport hub and customer orders a pizza. No longer need a self driving car, or drone; with this technology Dominos can teleport your hot fresh pizza to your house immediately after it is out of the oven.

Small objects like electrons and atoms behave according to quantum mechanics, with quantum effects like superposition, entanglement and teleportation. One of the most intriguing questions in modern science is if large objects – like a coffee cup — could also show this behavior. Scientists at the TU Delft have taken the next step towards observing quantum effects at everyday temperatures in large objects. They created a highly reflective membrane, visible to the naked eye, that can vibrate with hardly any energy loss at room temperature. The membrane is a promising candidate to research quantum mechanics in large objects.

The team has reported their results in Physical Review Letters.

Continue reading “Scientists take next step towards observing quantum physics in real life” »

While speaking at a transport conference in Norway this week, Elon Musk articulated that Tesla’s plan to revolutionize the transportation industry is much broader and more ambitious than initially assumed. In other words, if you thought Tesla’s master plan to usher in an EV revolution was going to end once the Model 3 hit mass production, think again.

DON’T MISS: One video and the story behind it tell you everything you need to know about Prince

Far from it, Tesla is just getting started. Not only have we heard reports that Tesla is eyeing a crossover vehicle based on the Model 3, Musk has also suggested that a Tesla pickup truck might also be a possibility later on down the line.

Continue reading “Elon Musk says Tesla is working on a secret new vehicle that could replace public transport” »

The creative acronym – SILMARILS – comes from “Lord of the Ring’s” magical lore. IARPA’s goals for the project are anything but fictional.

Current technologies for detecting narcotics, explosives and other dangerous chemicals requires physical contact between humans and X-ray-based machinery like those stationed within major airports that scan suitcases and luggage.

In other cases, a human must swab samples of a substance and run them through a similar machine, which is time and labor consuming and risky.

Continue reading “IARPA Wants a Hand-Held Laser Gun That Can Detect Chemicals 100 Feet Away” »