Lifeboat Foundation

Is supersonic travel coming back?

Almost 20 years after Concorde was retired, new supersonic passenger aircraft are finally emerging.

The Tesla Model 3 “refresh” has gone live on the electric car maker’s online configurator, and it comes with several compelling updates. As could be seen in the all-electric sedan’s order page, the Model 3 now comes with better range, better performance, new wheels, new features like a powered trunk, and more.

A look at the Model 3’s updated online configurator shows that the Standard Range variant, which used to have 250 miles of range, now has 263 miles of range per charge. The Model 3 Long Range Dual Motor AWD stands at the top range-wise with a whopping EPA rating of 353 miles per charge, far above the 322 miles that it previously offered. Even the Model 3 Performance, which is not optimized for maximum efficiency, now comes with 315 miles per charge, an improvement over its previous 299-mile EPA rating.

RACER to focus on new autonomy algorithm technologies.

Except someone—or, rather, something— can hear: your car. Hearing your angry words, aggressive tone, and raised voice, and seeing your furrowed brow, the onboard computer goes into “soothe” mode, as it’s been programmed to do when it detects that you’re angry. It plays relaxing music at just the right volume, releases a puff of light lavender-scented essential oil, and maybe even says some meditative quotes to calm you down.

What do you think—creepy? Helpful? Awesome? Weird? Would you actually calm down, or get even more angry that a car is telling you what to do?

Continue reading “Cars Will Soon Be Able to Sense and React to Your Emotions” »

What the hell is happening in the skies above Los Angeles?

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: On Wednesday afternoon, crew members on an airliner flying near Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) once again spotted a person in a jetpack gliding at an altitude of 6,000 feet high, a few miles northwest of the flight hub.

✈ You like badass planes. So do we. Let’s nerd out over them together.

Continue reading “ANOTHER Mysterious Jetpack Man Spotted Flying 6,000 Feet Over LAX” »

Are organic batteries coming?

Researchers at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics, Linköping University, have for the first time demonstrated an organic battery. It is of a type known as a ‘redox flow battery,” with a large capacity that can be used to store energy from wind turbines and solar cells, and as a power bank for cars.

Redox flow batteries are stationary batteries in which the energy is located in the electrolyte, outside of the cell itself, as in a fuel cell. They are often marketed with the prefix ‘eco,” since they open the possibility of storing excess energy from, for example, the sun and wind. Further, it appears to be possible to recharge them an unlimited number of times. However, redox flow batteries often contain vanadium, a scarce and expensive metal. The electrolyte in which energy is stored in a redox flow battery can be water-based, which makes the battery safe to use, but results in a lower energy density.

Continue reading “Researchers first to develop an organic battery” »

Is Tesla about to revolutionize the way we travel once more? Will it keep its promises? Or will regulators prove a massive oil slick to progress? A giant network of autonomous cars, that will drive at a very low cost and much safer than any human ever could. Everything we know about Tesla RoboTaxi Service.

0:00 Robotaxi information
3:09 preview of tesla ride sharing app functionality
4:49 Q2 2020 Earning Call — elon talks about driving the FSD tech himself
5:51 Elon Musk talks about Level 5 Autonomy and when Elon Musk hopes will reach full Level 5 Autonomy.

Continue reading “Elon Musk Robotaxi Coming: Will Make Uber Obsolete |elonTV” »

Collectively, we produce 2.1 billion tons of waste per year, or as a group of students from the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) would explain it, we produce the same amount as “the PSV Eindhoven football stadium filled 7380 times to the roof.”

With hydrogen supplied by Orange County’s sewage treatment plant and paid for by the car manufacturer, a new fuel cell vehicle is actually hitting the market in Los Angeles.