ISAAC YOUNG

A century-long problem solved?

Tesla has secured a massive Megapack order for a new giant energy storage project that will likely become the largest in the world.

The project in question is the Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub (MREH), which is located just outside of Melbourne.

When completed, it will consist of three battery systems totaling 600 MW/1.6 GWh of capacity.

Flying electric cars are not just for sci-fi movies. Miami-based Doroni Aerospace announced Friday its all-electric flying car, the Doroni H1, received official FAA Airworthiness Certification. And the best part – it’s designed to fit in your garage.

Doroni claims to be the first company to test manned flights with a 2-seater flying electric car in the US. The Doroni H1 took flight earlier this year.

CEO Doron Merdinger successfully piloted the personal electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (eVTOL) this summer. Merdinger said receiving the flight certification “is not just a milestone for our company, but a leap forward for the entire field of personal air mobility.”

It is now contributing carbon-free energy to the grid that serves Google’s Nevada data centers.

Researchers have worked out how a protein called photolyase repairs DNA using light, and their discoveries could guide the development of light-based manufacturing technologies.

By Grace Wade

“We’re looking at a race, a race between China, between IBM, Google, Microsoft, Honeywell,” Kaku said. “All the big boys are in this race to create a workable, operationally efficient quantum computer. Because the nation or company that does this will rule the world economy.”

It’s not just the economy quantum computing could impact. A quantum computer is set up at Cleveland Clinic, where Chief Research Officer Dr. Serpil Erzurum believes the technology could revolutionize the world of health care.

Quantum computers can potentially model the behavior of proteins, the molecules that regulate all life, Erzurum said. Proteins change their shape to change their function in ways that are too complex to follow, but quantum computing could change that understanding.

Physicists are coming to realise that hypothetical particles called axions could explain not only dark matter, but dark energy too, and more besides. Now there is fresh impetus to detect them.

By Jonathan O’Callaghan

A team of researchers affiliated with AI startups Gen AI, Meta, AutoGPT, HuggingFace and Fair Meta, has developed a benchmark tool for use by makers of AI assistants, particularly those that make Large Language Model based products, to test their applications as potential Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) applications. They have written a paper describing their tool, which they have named GAIA, and how it can be used. The article is posted on the arXiv preprint server.

Over the past year, researchers in the AI field have been debating the ability of AI systems, both in private and on social media. Some have suggested that AI systems are coming very close to having AGI while others have suggested the opposite is much closer to the truth. Such systems, all agree, will match and even surpass human intelligence at some point. The only question is when.

In this new effort, the research team notes that in order for a consensus to be reached, if true AGI systems emerge, a ratings system must be in place to measure their intelligence level both against each other and against humans. Such a system, they further note, would have to begin with a benchmark, and that is what they are proposing in their paper.

Ray Kurzweil and a host of other ambitious scientists are trying to take major next steps with AI — the revival of the dead. Within three decades, he hopes to create a ‘dad bot’ in the flesh.

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