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Scientists at Purdue University are propelling the future of robotics and autonomous systems forward with their patent-pending method that improves typical machine vision and perception.

Zubin Jacob, the Elmore Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and research scientist Fanglin Bao have developed HADAR, or heat-assisted detection and ranging. Their research was featured on the cover of the July 26 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Nature.

Jacob said it is expected that one in 10 vehicles will be automated and that there will be 20 million robot helpers that serve people by 2030.

Elon Musk says Tesla is now working on the “final piece of the Full Self-Driving (FSD) AI puzzle,” and apparently that is “vehicle control.”

Despite his best efforts to stop making predictions about self-driving, the CEO has recently still predicted that Tesla would achieve full autonomy by the end of the year.

For many of us who use Tesla’s FSD Beta regularly, it is hard to imagine that Tesla can make the jump from the current state to a level 4 or 5 of autonomy where the automaker would take responsibility for the system and enable drivers to use it without monitoring in just a few months.

The day is fast approaching when generative AI won’t only write and create images in a convincingly human-like style, but compose music and sounds that pass for a professional’s work, too. This morning, Meta announced AudioCraft, a framework to generate what it describes as “high-quality,” “realistic” audio and music from short text descriptions, or prompts. It’s not Meta’s first foray into audio generation — the tech giant open sourced an AI-powered music generator, MusicGen, in June — but Meta claims that it’s made advances that vastly improve the quality of AI-generated sounds, such as dogs barking, cars honking and footsteps on a wooden floor.

In a blog post shared with TechCrunch, Meta… More.

What specific changes can we expect in the exterior and interior of the 2024 Tesla Model Y Juniper? When exactly will the Model Y refresh be released? Will there be any improvements in the battery and technology of the Model Y?

As the electric vehicle market continues to thrive, Tesla remains at the top of the EV ladder with its models staying in the top selling charts. Among its impressive lineup, the Model Y stands out as a tough rival shaping the whole EV market in its favor.

With the upcoming release of the 2024 Tesla Model Y Project Juniper and Model 3 Project Highland, as we discussed in our recent posts, Tesla is aiming to redefine the electric SUV segment even further. This highly anticipated refresh promises exciting changes to both the interior and exterior of the popular Model Y.

MIT researchers have discovered that when you mix cement and carbon black with water, the resulting concrete self-assembles into an energy-storing supercapacitor that can put out enough juice to power a home or fast-charge electric cars.

We’ve written before about the idea of using concrete for energy storage – back in 2021, a team from the Chalmers University of Technology showed how useful amounts of electrical energy could be stored in concrete poured around carbon fiber mesh electrodes, with mixed-in carbon fibers to add conductivity.

MIT’s discovery appears to take things to the next level, since it does away with the need to lay mesh electrodes into the concrete, and instead allows the carbon black to form its own connected electrode structures as part of the curing process.

Two of humanity’s most ubiquitous historical materials, cement and carbon black (which resembles very fine charcoal), may form the basis for a novel, low-cost energy storage system, according to a new study. The technology could facilitate the use of renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and tidal power by allowing energy networks to remain stable despite fluctuations in renewable energy supply.

The two materials, the researchers found, can be combined with water to make a supercapacitor—an alternative to batteries—that could provide storage of electrical energy.

As an example, the MIT researchers who developed the system say that their supercapacitor could eventually be incorporated into the concrete foundation of a house, where it could store a full day’s worth of energy while adding little (or no) to the cost of the foundation and still providing the needed structural strength. The researchers also envision a concrete roadway that could provide contactless recharging for electric cars as they travel over that road.

Electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla is the frequent subject of rumors and speculation, all of which must be taken with a grain of salt. But if the newest batch of rumors is to be believed, Tesla is currently looking into an “extreme fast charging” technology developed by Israeli startup StoreDot, per Inside EVs.

The news comes via an article in USA Today that, as Inside EVs noted, “doesn’t cite any sources.” The USA Today article in question was written by a contributor and contained a disclaimer at the bottom reading, “Members of the editorial and news staff of the USA TODAY Network were not involved in the creation of this content.”

If the report is to be believed, Tesla’s interest in StoreDot could mean shorter charging times for Teslas, as the company claims to have developed batteries that can charge 100 miles of driving range in just five minutes, per Inside EVs.

Sodium-ion (Na-ion) batteries and solid-state batteries have both been in the news recently. Why? Because the need for battery storage is growing rapidly as the global economy seeks carbon-based energy alternatives in pursuit of the goal to achieve net-zero emissions by the mid-century.

Na-ion Battery News

In April I wrote about BYD, a Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer, that is using sodium-ion (Na-ion) battery packs instead of lithium-ion (Li-ion) in some of its models. In its latest report, IDTechEx, out of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, states that although Na-ion batteries are not the answer to all battery-power applications, they do provide a complimentary addition to battery packs used not just in EVs but also for backup power within utilities and factories.

Since launching in July 2017, the Model 3 from Tesla Inc TSLA has been one of the bestselling electric vehicles of all time.

A recent Bloomberg survey reveals how Model 3 owners have felt about the company over time — and Tesla CEO Elon Musk might not love the results.

What Happened: The Model 3 and Model Y continue to be Tesla’s bestselling models and big reasons why the company has dominated the market share for electric vehicles around the world.