Behind the Wheel, Under the Hood of World’s First 500-Mile EV
Behind the Wheel, Under the Hood of World’s First 500-Mile EV
Whether Lucid Motors will succeed in the brutally competitive auto business remains an open question. But its technological advantages are settled: With an EPA-rated range of up to 837 km (520 miles), the Lucid Air sedan can travel farther on a charge, and charge faster, than any EV in history…
McDonald’s Enters Strategic Partnership With IBM to Automate Drive-Thru Lanes
McDonald’s said Wednesday it has entered a strategic partnership with IBM to develop artificial intelligence technology that will help the fast-food chain automate its drive-thru lanes…
Lidar Reveals Hundreds of Long-Lost Maya and Olmec Ceremonial Centers
An airborne lidar survey recently revealed hundreds of long-lost Maya and Olmec ceremonial sites in southern Mexico. The 32,800-square-mile area was surveyed by the Mexican Instituto Nacional de Estadistica y Geografia, which made the data public. When University of Arizona archaeologist Takeshi Inomata and his colleagues examined the area, which spans the Olmec heartland along the Bay of Campeche and the western Maya Lowlands just north of the Guatemalan border, they identified the outlines of 478 ceremonial sites that had been mostly hidden beneath vegetation or were simply too large to recognize from the ground…
An Ambitious Project Is Attempting to Interpret Sperm Whale Clicks With Artificial Intelligence, Then Talk Back to Them.
“I don’t know much about whales. I have never seen a whale in my life,” says Michael Bronstein. The Israeli computer scientist, teaching at Imperial College London, England, might not seem the ideal candidate for a project involving the communication of sperm whales. But his skills as an expert in machine learning could be key to an ambitious endeavor that officially started in March 2020: an interdisciplinary group of scientists wants to use artificial intelligence (AI) to decode the language of these marine mammals. If Project CETI (for Cetacean Translation Initiative) succeeds, it would be the first time that we actually understand what animals are chatting about—and maybe we could even have a conversation with them…
Gurman: Apple Planning ‘Pricey’ Mixed Reality Device to Launch as Early as 2022
In his latest edition of the Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman talks about Apple’s long-rumored mixed-reality device, which could finally launch as early as next year. This is not the first time Gurman has reported on this mixed reality device. Apple has been planning one for a few years now and it seems it’s almost ready to be announced…
Argon Fluoride Laser Could Lead to Practical Fusion Reactors
The US Naval Research Laboratory (AFL) is developing an Argon Fluoride (ArF) laser that may one day make fusion power a practical commercial technology. The wide-bandwidth ultraviolet laser is designed to have the shortest laser wavelength that can scale up to power a self-sustaining fusion reaction…