Last year, sales of electric-chargeable vehicles (EVs and plug-in hybrids) in the EU saw an impressive tenfold increase, reaching 1.7 million units — or 18% of the total car market. However, the number of public chargers grew by only 2.5 times over the same period. According to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), the EU’s current pace in charging infrastructure won’t allow the Union to reach its 2030 green targets, which aim for a 55% CO2 reduction from passenger cars. Cit
A SpaceX Dragon rocket is due to take off this week with some unusual cargo on board: an EEG headset. The device will fly to the International Space Station (ISS) for a first-of-its-kind experiment. The mission? Analyzing the neurological activity of astronauts to understand how microgravity affects the brain. The headset was designed by brain.space, an Israeli company that’s come out of stealth mode for the project. Image: brain.space There is still little known about the effects of space trav
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine started last month, and as a response, various tech companies started to discontinue or limit their services in the country. Some of those were voluntary, and some of those were driven by international sanctions. Here’s a running list of all the companies and digital services paused or discontinued in Russia: Apple Pay: Last month, after Russian banks were hit with sanctions, Apple decided to shut down its payment services to follow those regulations. Apple Store: Ea
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