With over 27% of the country below sea level, the Netherlands boasts one of the world’s – if not the world’s — most intricate and advanced water management networks. Over 5,000 kilometers of waterways crisscross the country, connected by a sophisticated network of bridges, dykes, and locks. There are even more waterways than highways in the country, which are used to transport around 35% of the countries’ goods. Rijkswaterstaat, the department tasked with managing and maintaining this gargantuan
One day, you may be able to pay for your Uber with Bitcoin. Or, at least, that’s what Dara Khosrowshahi, the company’s CEO, told Bloomberg. This sounds good, but if you ask me? It’s nothing but a marketing stunt. Before you call me biased, let’s take a closer look at what Khosrowshahi said: Is Uber going to accept crypto in the future? Absolutely, at some point. This isn’t the right point, but we will. I love the wording here. The certainty of “absolutely” paired with an indefinite future t
By now, I’m sure you’ll have heard of one of the Super Bowl’s big stories: the Coinbase QR advert. For the uninitiated, Coinbase — a cryptocurrency exchange — ran a 60 second spot that featured a QR code bouncing around in a way reminiscent of old DVD screensavers. It was a roaring success. Coinbase claims it witnessed over 20 million hits in a single minute on its special offer of $15 of free Bitcoin for new sign-ups. Of course, take the visitors figure with a pinch of salt. The number comes fr
My daily routine currently looks like this: wake up, brush my teeth, eat breakfast, read about a new metaverse or NFT project, get confused, question life choices, sleep, repeat. With all the chatter around hyped web3 projects everywhere you look — from metaverses to NFT marketplaces — it got me thinking: how many cryptocurrencies exist right now? You might already know that besides the OGs Bitcoin and Ether, several more currencies exist. There’s not a definitive number, but here are some figur
VR headsets can be bulky beings with some of them going up to 900 grams in weight — that’s more than some motorcycle helmets. Earlier this month, a German man even broke his neck playing a VR game, and while a heavy headset wasn’t directly blamed, that sort of weight on one’s noggin likely was at fault in his injury. Motorola has a new solution to take some weight off your head: the company has developed a 5G smartphone that you could wear around your neck, which will host all the processing har
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is becoming a leading destination for fast-growing tech startups. In 2020, the region reached a record $1 billion in startup investments, signaling a voracious investor appetite in the technology sector. The maturing digital economy coupled with region-wide innovation initiatives make MENA an attractive place to launch or scale a startup for an increasing number of global entrepreneurs. Heavy hitters like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are also investing in
DeepMind has been connected to artificial general intelligence since birth. The lab was launched with a mission to develop AGI, was cofounded by a researcher who coined the term, and has made some compelling advances in the field. It also recently produced a provocative paper on the subject: “Reward is Enough” The study hypothesizes that AGI could be achieved through a single approach: reinforcement learning. This technique provides feedback in the form of a “reward” — a positive number that tel
This is something you might not know: almost all EVs are automatic. You’ll be hard pressed to find one with a gear stick. Why, you ask? Because EVs simply don’t need more than a single gear. I know, a stick shift car feels empowering, so why haven’t automakers thought about a “best-of-both-words” solution and put one in an EV? Oh wait, they have. Kinda. Toyota’s idea Yep, the carmaker is flirting with manual transmission and a clutch for… EVs?! At least that’s the info we got from a series of
When I first sat behind the wheel of an EV, I noticed something missing: the clutch and the gear stick. The reason behind this is simple. EVs don’t have a gearbox. They’re automatic. So instead of a stick, you’ll find a lever, switch, or button that allows you to select “drive”, “park,” and “reverse.” Take a look at Polestar 2’s “gear” shifter. Image: Polestar Why don’t EVs have multiple gears? Unlike petrol or diesel cars, they don’t need them. The internal combustion engine of conventional ve
Just over 12 months ago, we were sitting at Woomera, in the Australian outback, waiting for a streak of light in the sky to testify that the Hayabusa2 spacecraft had returned from its voyage to collect a little piece of a near-Earth asteroid called Ryugu. Unfortunately for us, it was cloudy in Woomera that day and we didn’t see the spacecraft come in. But that was the only imperfection we saw in the return. We found and retrieved Hayabusa2, brought it back to Woomera, cleaned and examined it. Sc