Some people think autonomous vehicles must be nearly flawless before humans take their hands off the wheel. But RAND research shows that putting AVs on the road before they’re perfect improves the technology more quickly—and could save hundreds of thousands of lives over time.
Category: transportation – Page 503
Putting autonomous vehicles on the road when they perform just better than human drivers could save hundreds of thousands of lives over time. This article explains: r.rand.org/5y4v
As the common tropes of science fiction continue to break out into reality, from humanoid robots to self-driving cars, there’s one concept that has seemingly remained beyond our grasp: time travel.
But, jumping through time might not be impossible, after all, according to one astrophysicist.
By the rules of theoretical physics, certain conditions exist that would allow for the construction of elaborate wormholes, which could transport humans back to different eras.
While scientists have yet to discover the conditions needed to travel back in time, and construction a system large enough for humans certainly wouldn’t be easy, ‘there’s nothing forbidding it’ in the laws of theoretical physics, explains astrophysicist Ethan Siegel of Lewis & Clark College in the Forbes blog Starts With A Bang.
Backward time travel would rely on the elusive counterpart to the known positive energy / positive or zero mass particles found all throughout the universe – the negative mass/energy particles, which have long been theorized but never yet found.
NASA is set to begin testing a radical ‘nuclear engine’ that could provide power for astronauts on the Martian surface.
Dubbed the ‘Kilopower’ it would use a uranium rector the size of a toilet roll to create heat.
A high efficiency Stirling engine would then convert this to electricity, in a system that works in a similar way to a car engine.
NASA’s Kilopower engines will use a uranium rector the size of a toilet roll to create heat, then a high efficiency Stirling engine would convert this to electricity.
A group of security researchers has remotely hacked a Boeing 757 aircraft without the knowledge of the pilots, a US government official has claimed.
Robert Hickey, a Homeland Security cyber investigator, managed to take over the passenger jet on the runway at Atlantic City airport, New Jersey.
A Boeing official has said the test is unlikely to indicate a major threat to airliners, adding: ‘I’m not afraid to fly’.
Washington (AFP) — Police in the US state of Delaware are poised to deploy “smart” cameras in cruisers to help authorities detect a vehicle carrying a fugitive, missing child or straying senior.
The video feeds will be analyzed using artificial intelligence to identify vehicles by license plate or other features and “give an extra set of eyes” to officers on patrol, says David Hinojosa of Coban Technologies, the company providing the equipment.
“We are helping officers keep their focus on their jobs,” said Hinojosa, who touts the new technology as a “dashcam on steroids.”