Despite their undeniable popularity, Tesla vehicles have been experiencing a wave of troubles: a string of crashes, Autopilot and Full-Self Driving Beta malfunctions, and even battery explosions. As a result, the automaker has consistently drawn the attention of the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). But has it made it easy for the agency to investigate the company’s reported safety issues? No, it hasn’t. In an intriguing piece, The Washington Post’s Faiz Siddiqui details
This week saw champion sailing and blockchain tech join forces to bring fans closer to the sport. At this season’s race in San Francisco, SailGP announced a partnership with NEAR Foundation, makers of blockchain platform Astro. I’m attending the competition, so I took a look at what this means for the sport — and it’s big. What is SailGP? The fleet cross the start line on Race Day 1 of the San Francisco SailGP. Credit: Ricardo Pinto for SailGP. SailGP is a global sailing league co-founded in 201
You’re driving slowly along a street, looking for a place to park. You come across a long stretch of parallel parking. But to your frustration, the spaces left by other people’s parking efforts are not quite long enough for you to fit. The search continues. Drawn from our own frustrating experiences with parking, we decided to answer the question once and for all – what’s the best way to parallel park your car? Our research has found a simple answer. You should always park at one end of a parkin
For weeks, Russia’s military assault on Ukraine has been complemented by full-fledged information warfare. The Kremlin has propagandised Russian state media, and is trying to control the narrative online too. We’ve seen a bombardment of “imposter content” circulating – including fake news reports and deepfake videos – while Ukranians and the rest of the world have scrambled to find ways to tell the real story of the invasion. A deepfake of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky calling on his so
In early 2022, nearly two years after Covid was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, experts are mulling a big question: when is a pandemic “over”? So, what’s the answer? What criteria should be used to determine the “end” of Covid’s pandemic phase? These are deceptively simple questions and there are no easy answers. I am a computer scientist who investigates the development of ontologies. In computing, ontologies are a means to formally structure knowledge of a subject domain,
Want to go to space? It could cost you. This month, the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft will make the first fully-private, crewed flight to the International Space Station. The going price for a seat is US$55 million. The ticket comes with an eight-day stay on the space station, including room and board – and unrivaled views. Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin offer cheaper alternatives, which will fly you to the edge of space for a mere US$250,000-500,000. But the flights only last between ten and 1
EV registrations in the UK have been increasing at an impressive rate during the past few years, which indicates an upwards trend in electrification. However, the current EV charging network can’t keep up with the rising numbers. To improve the country’s charging network, the government announced today a new £500 million plan to help the UK market reach 300,000 public EV chargepoints by 2030. To put the numbers into perspective, that’s a tenfold increase on the chargers’ existing number of 28,37
Robots are featuring more and more in our daily lives. They can be incredibly useful (bionic limbs, robotic lawnmowers, or robots which deliver meals to people in quarantine), or merely entertaining (robotic dogs, dancing toys, and acrobatic drones). Imagination is perhaps the only limit to what robots will be able to do in the future. What happens, though, when robots don’t do what we want them to – or do it in a way that causes harm? For example, what happens if a bionic arm is involved in a d
If you’ve been on Twitter in the last two days, chances are that you’ve seen a video online of The Richest Man Alive™, celebrating. After months of COVID delays and issues with construction permits due to environmental concerns, Elon Musk finally made it to Berlin this week to officially open Tesla’s new Gigafactory. ‘Giga’ is no exaggeration – the manufacturing hub is ready to deliver 500,000 Teslas into this world every year. While the first Model Y cars were presented to their new owners, Elo
Charging your EV on the go comes with a big disadvantage: you’re gonna have to wait a while. But waiting wouldn’t be such a hassle if you could do so in comfort and — why not? — have a coffee and do some shopping. On Wednesday, Electrify America announced a new design vision for some of its public charging stations, aiming to make charging as comfortable and seamless as possible. Electrify America’s “charging station of the future.” Image: Electrify America The redesigned stations will feature c