Lifeboat Foundation

Since a gas leak erupted outside LA on October 23rd, over 83,000 metric tons of methane have escaped to the atmosphere, prompting public officials to evacuate the neighboring community of Porter Ranch. But as a disturbing new analysis shows, a much broader swath of LA is now drowning in methane.

The Home Energy Efficiency Team (HEET) is a Cambridge-based nonprofit that’s been shedding light on leaky natural gas infrastructure for years. Last week, HEET sent Boston University Professor Nathan Phillips and Bob Ackley of Gas Safety out to LA to measure pollution in the air surrounding Porter Ranch.

Continue reading “The LA Gas Leak Is Scarier Than We Thought” »

Yesterday, Tesla Motors released software update 7.1 for the Model S and Model X, an update that allows the electric cars to park themselves while you stand by and watch in awe. Today, CEO Elon Musk made a bold prediction: In 2018, this feature will work anywhere that cars can drive.

Called Summon, the functionality is part of Tesla’s Autopilot self-driving technology. Autopilot was introduced with version 7.0 of Tesla’s software in October 2015, and lets drivers take their hands off the wheel in certain conditions.

Continue reading “Elon Musk: You’ll be able to summon your Tesla from anywhere in 2018” »

The real question is what are these? Is it old debris or something else?

Vietnamese military seized three bizarre metal objects that fell from the sky for military investigation. Initial findings showed they are made from Russia and could be part of a failed satellite launch. Similar objects were also found in Turkey and Spain in November 2015.(Photo : World News Times | YouTube)

The Vietnamese military seized three metal balls that fell from the sky on Saturday. The mysterious objects landed in northern Vietnam where witnesses from the Tan Dong and Bao Dap communities heard thunder-like sounds and saw “flying objects” in the sky before the metal balls crash-landed.

Continue reading “Vietnam Officials Seize Mysterious Metal Balls That Fell From Space” »

“[H]alf the people in the world cram into just 1 percent of the Earth’s surface (in yellow), and the other half sprawl across the remaining 99 percent (in black).”

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Remember when a cheap $60 wireless router was all your home needed? We were so naive back then. When everything from your phone to your fridge is on your home network, you need a little more wi-fi horsepower. So TP-Link is introducing the first wireless router with blazing 802.11ad.

For the uninitiated, the 802.11ad protocol adds yet another band of spectrum in the 57-66GHz range (depending on what part of the world you live in) in addition to the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands that 802.11ac routers use now.

There’s quite a few technical reasons as to why the jump to 60GHz is a good thing, but the most important for the average consumer is speed. The 5GHz band maxes out at 1,733Mbps, but the new 60GHz band can achieve wireless transfer speeds of up to 4,600Mbps. So streaming 4K video without a network cable? Not a problem.

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The Wi-Fi Alliance branded its next-generation 802.11ah wireless protocol as Wi-Fi HaLow. It is targeted at the Internet of Things (IoT), which includes the smart home, connected car, and digital healthcare, as well as industrial, retail, agriculture, and smart-city environments. Unlike the older and more familiar 802.11 protocols, which mostly use the 2.4 or 5GHz bands, 802.11ah is a sub-gigahertz protocol that uses the 900MHz band. It has an enviable combination of characteristics.

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Imagine an apartment where you could whiz down a 1,000-foot ski slope from the roof to the sidewalk.

This daredevil’s dream building might eventually be a reality. Called House Slalom, the 21-story residential complex with a ski slope could be built in Kazakhstan.

The design by Shokhan Mataibekov Architects was a finalist in the residential category at this year’s World Architecture Festival awards. If the proposal gets the green light, it would be the world’s first residential building with a ski slope.

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A new app turns an iPad into a 3D-scanner to help people remodel their homes.

It’s to be shown off at the CES tech event in Vegas this week. But if you want all its features they don’t come cheap.

Watch the full video and check out our other CES coverage: http://bbc.co.uk/ces2016

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Mark Zuckerberg wants to live a bit more like Tony Stark. In a post on Facebook this afternoon, Zuckerberg wrote that he intends to build an AI that can run his home and present him with virtual reality visualizations of his work. “You can think of it kind of like Jarvis in Iron Man,” Zuckerberg writes.

Zuckerberg’s vision starts basic but gets a lot more ambitious. “I’m going to start by exploring what technology is already out there,” he writes. That should be able to handle his initial goals, like controlling “music, lights, temperature, and so on.” He also wants this system to recognize when friends are at the front door and let them in, alert him if his newborn daughter needs attention, and to do all of this only when it recognizes the person speaking. For the most part, that’s all doable even for the non-billionaire home builder. Zuckerberg has already found one product that he likes: “For just music, the Amazon Echo is pretty great. It’s been very useful for controlling music with my voice while both hands are occupied taking care of Max.”

The more challenging aspects of the project include making it work without direct input by him or Priscilla Chan, his wife. “I’m very interested in using voice and face recognition to set lights and temperature as well depending on who is in what rooms, etc,” he writes. “For example, I like rooms colder than Cilla, and but it’s possible to just see who is in what room and adjust the temperatures automatically.”

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