As reported by Bloomberg: Investors are wondering how many years it
will take before Tesla makes a profit. For Elon Musk’s other big
enterprise, SpaceX, the time is now.
Space Exploration Technologies, as the closely held company
is formally known, has contracts worth $4.2 billion for hauling
U.S. astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station,
and Pentagon officials say they expect to certify it soon for
military payloads. And SpaceX’s business of launching satellites
looks so promising that, in January, Google and Fidelity
Investments together invested $1 billion in the Hawthorne,
California–based company. That gives them a 10 percent stake
that values SpaceX at $10 billion. Other investors include the
Founders Fund, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Valor Equity Partners,
and Capricorn. With 50 launches worth $5 billion on its
manifest, SpaceX is making money, according to its website,
although a spokesman wouldn’t say how much.
On Jan. 10, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket took off from Cape
Canaveral, above, and successfully delivered 5,200 pounds of
supplies to the space station. SpaceX’s schedule includes 16
satellite launches in 2015, the most in the company’s 13-year
history. “Google brings the applications for the satellites to
the table, and SpaceX has the technical know-how and the launch
capacity,” says Marco Caceres, director of space studies at
consulting firm Teal Group in Fairfax, Virginia.
Beaming the Internet
Google has a practical goal in linking up with SpaceX. It
wants to beam the Internet to hard-to-reach regions of the
planet so it can take in more advertising revenue. “Space-based
applications, like imaging satellites, can help people more
easily access important information, so we’re excited to support
SpaceX’s growth,” Google spokesman Aaron Stein said in a
statement.
Musk’s aim is more ethereal: He wants to colonize Mars.
SpaceX, which employs 4,000 people, is offering cheaper
rocket and satellite launches than were possible when NASA and
the military were in charge. Musk says he can send a satellite
into space for $60 million. His main private competitor, United
Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing,
spends $225 million, ULA’s website says.
Reusable Rockets
Musk’s money-saving strategy is to produce reusable
rockets, which will return to Earth and land on a seagoing
barge. SpaceX called off its second attempt at a barge landing,
on Feb. 11, because of heavy seas. The company was due to try
again in April. “Aircraft do tens of thousands of flights,”
Musk told Bloomberg News in January. If SpaceX rockets can be
reused, he said, the cost comes down to “$200,000 to $300,000
per flight in fuel and oxygen versus a $60 million rocket.”
And the Mars colony? Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s chief
operating officer, says the first step, manned flights to the
planet, could begin in 15 years.
As reported by PC Mag: Tech-savvy car fans might be tempted to tinker with a Tesla's
high-tech innards, but Elon Musk would prefer that you not pimp your
ride.
In a new regulatory filing, Musk outlines the challenges and risks
facing Tesla Motors, which is a pretty standard thing to do on such
documents. But this particular list is intriguing because it covers a
very modern potential problem with today's cars.
"If our vehicle owners customize our vehicles or change the charging
infrastructure with aftermarket products, the vehicle may not operate
properly, which could harm our business," the report said.
Pointing
a finger directly at "automobile enthusiasts" often keen to hack their
car to boost performance, Tesla warns that changes could place vehicle
safety systems at risk.
Customers who install seats meant to elevate the driver, for example,
may be placing themselves out of range of the airbag. Others who try to
install large speaker systems could impact the car's electrical system,
or, you know, accidentally fry their brains.
"We have not tested, nor do we endorse, such changes or products,"
Tesla said. "Such unauthorized modifications could reduce the safety of
our vehicles, and any injuries from such modifications could result in
adverse publicity which would negatively affect our brand and harm our
business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results."
The company suffered some bad PR in the fall of 2013, when its electric vehicles caught fire three times in five weeks.
Perhaps rewiring a Model S stereo system so you can better jam out to
Kanye's sick beats could turn you into the next "Tesla disaster"
headline.
Most of the other "risks" outlined in the annual report lean on
Tesla, not consumers: delayed rollouts, slow suppliers, high prices, and
negative publicity.
There is little the manufacturer can do about customers tinkering
with their cars—a fact Tesla all but admitted in its report. But don't
say you weren't warned.
Last month, Tesla was accused of padding its 6,000-strong ranks with a number of former Apple workers; the automaker hired at least 150 ex-Cupertino-ites since 2010, Bloomberg reported.
Apple is fighting back, allegedly offering $250,000 signing bonuses
and 60 percent salary increase to Tesla employees who join the tech
giant.
Last year, Musk confirmed he had informal talks with execs at Apple, but denied any acquisition plans.
As reported by Inside GNSS: New rules recently adopted by the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) to help emergency responders better locate wireless 911 callers
highlight the role of GPS and GNSS technologies while boosting the use
of alternative positioning technologies in indoor locations.
However, the new enhanced (11 (E911) rules, adopted January 29 and published on February 4, explicitly avoided a decision on the use of GNSS systems other than GPS.
The E911 rules were originally adopted in 1996 and underwent their
last major revision in 2010, but they allowed providers to meet accuracy
standards based solely on the measured performance of outdoor wireless
911 calls.
The new rules will require wireless telecom companies, referred to in
FCC terms as commercial mobile radio service (CMRS) providers, to
ensure “dispatchable location” or x/y location within 50 meters can be
provided to 911 call centers, known as public safety answering points
(PSAPs), within 30 seconds, regardless of indoor or outdoor location.
Dispatchable location means the street address of the calling party,
plus additional information such as suite, apartment, or similar
information necessary to adequately identify the location of the calling
party.
The requirement begins at 40 percent of the calls within two years
and 80 percent within six years. Separate vertical location reporting
requirements are also laid out in the FCC’s order. Regional mobile phone
service providers have similar requirements but a more flexible time
line.
“To be sure, no single technological approach will solve the
challenge of indoor location, and no solution can be implemented
overnight,” the FCC commissioners said in the agency’s Fourth Report and
Order on Wireless E911 Location Accuracy Requirements. “The
requirements we adopt are technically feasible and technologically
neutral, so that providers can choose the most effective solutions from a
range of options.”
The FCC pointed out that the increasing number of wireless 911 calls
from indoors “has reduced the quality of location information available
to first responders in the absence of compensatory technologies to
enhance location. Specifically, satellite-based location technologies do
not provide accurate location data for many wireless calls placed from
indoor locations, particularly in urban areas here a growing number of
Americans reside.”
In determining the appropriate balance to strike in its requirements and timeframes, the agency gave significant weight to the “Roadmap for Improving E911 Location Accuracy”
that was agreed to in November 2014 by the Association of Public Safety
Communications Officials (APCO), the National Emergency Number
Association (NENA), and the four national wireless Commercial Mobile
Radio Service (CMRS) providers. The FCC commissioners also relied on the
“Parallel Path for Competitive Carriers’ Improvement of E911 Location
Accuracy Standards” (“Parallel Path”) that was submitted by the
Competitive Carriers Association (CCA).
GNSS Good and Bad
Although the FCC had come to support the use of GPS and assisted-GPS
techniques in meeting its E911 goals, it did not abandon GNSS technology
in adopting the indoor-oriented rules.
“We see no reason to discount reliance by CMRS providers on such
successful indoor fixes [provided by assisted-GNSS or A-GNSS] in
promoting our goals for indoor location accuracy,” the commissioners
said. “Conversely, particularly in light of the rapidly accelerating
trend toward indoor wireless calls, we do not believe these figures [on
successful A-GNSS E911 calls from indoor locations] provide any
significant disincentive for CMRS providers to pursue alternative
solutions for indoor calls in more challenging indoor locations.
Indeed, CMRS providers have significant incentive in many indoor
situations to pair A-GNSS with other location technologies.”
On the other hand, the agency was unwilling to accept GNSS E911 solutions other than GPS for the time being.
“We do not decide the issue of operating with non-U.S. satellite
signals in this proceeding, which would require consideration of a
variety of issues, including its potential impact on the use of adjacent
bands,” the report and order stated. “Therefore, nothing in today’s
decision authorizes the use of any non-U.S. satellite system in
conjunction with the 911 system, including the 911 location accuracy
rules we adopt today.
The FCC noted that A-GNSS technologies used to augment GPS “may
increase the potential exposure of devices to interference by increasing
the number of unwanted signals and the number of signals that can
introduce data integrity problems.”
CMRS providers seeking to use non-U.S. satellites should also conduct
testing “to ensure that operation with these signals does not
inadvertently introduce vulnerabilities to the devices that could impair
E911 performance or compromise data integrity,” the reported added.
For example, devices that are augmented to receive signals from multiple
satellite constellations may be more susceptible to radio frequency
interference than devices that receive signals from GPS alone.
Devices should also be evaluated to determine their capabilities to
detect and mitigate the effects of inaccurate or corrupted data from any
RNSS system that could result in incorrect location information, or no
information at all, being relayed to a PSAP,” the commissioners said, referring specifically to the GLONASS system failure on April 1, 2014.
“We expect CMRS providers, at the time they certify their compliance
with the Commission’s location accuracy requirements, to also certify
that any devices on their network operating with foreign A-GNSS signals
for 911 location accuracy have proper authorizations in place to permit
such use,” the order directed. “Before incorporating foreign A-GNSS into
E911, CMRS providers must coordinate plans for foreign A-GNSS signal
integration with the [FCC’s] Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau
to confirm that signals are interoperable with GPS and that measures to
prevent interference are appropriate. Furthermore, CMRS providers are
expected to certify that the devices have been tested to determine their
ability to detect and mitigate the effects of harmful interference.”
As reported by 3DPrint: There is little doubt that some of the world’s largest corporations
are investigating 3D printing as a means to both make and save money
across the board. Amazon, for example, has slowly been inching its way
into the space, partnering with several key companies, including Mixee Labs, to offer customizable 3D printed products to their customers.
As the world’s leading ecommerce provider, Amazon seems to stay ahead
of the curve when it comes to selling us anything from printer paper to
giant $1 million robots.
Thus far, it appears as if the company’s decision to enter the 3D
printing space has paid off, as they continue to expand the program in
both scale and scope.
If you know much about Amazon, then you know that they obsess with
getting products to consumers as fast as physically possible. In fact,
they have recently launched One-Hour Delivery in Manhattan, and is
pushing for delivery via drones. Usually though, the faster a product is
shipped, the more money it will cost the company that is shipping it,
and ultimately this comes back to the consumer. For example, Amazon
needs to stock literally millions of products at warehouse hubs as close
to their customers as possible. Warehouse space is not cheap,
especially when considering the millions of square feet needed by a
company like Amazon.
What if Amazon could avoid same of these storage costs and get items
to users even faster with the use of new, rapidly advancing technologies
like 3D printing? Well, that’s just what they are looking into.
Late last week United States Patent and Trademark Office published a patent filing
by Amazon Technologies, Inc. which outlines a method of 3D printing
on-demand within mobile manufacturing hubs. According to Amazon, such a
setup could save the company time and money on several fronts.
“The multiplicity of items offered may require the
electronic marketplace owner/operator to maintain a large inventory
requiring sufficient space to store the inventory,” states the filing.
“An electronic marketplace may also face the challenge of time delays
related to the process of finding the selected item among a large
inventory. Increased space to store additional inventory may raise costs
for the electronic marketplace. Additionally, time delays between
receiving an order and shipping the item to the customer may reduce
customer satisfaction and affect revenues generated. Accordingly, an
electronic marketplace may find it desirable to decrease the amount of
warehouse or inventory storage space needed, to reduce the amount of
time consumed between receiving an order and delivering the item to the
customer, or both.”
By utilizing ‘mobile manufacturing apparatuses Amazon would be able
to send an STL file to a mobile unit that’s closest to a customer,
providing it with instructions to print out an item which was ordered.
When the item has been completed, it could then be within miles of the
customer who ordered it and quickly delivered or picked up.
The mobile hubs, according to the patent filing, would include a
means to both additively and subtractively manufacture an item. This
could include a number of different 3D printing technologies as well as
CNC machining tools, which would ultimately reduce Amazon’s reliance on
warehouse space as well as the robots and employees needed to sort
through these stored items.
Of course every patent that’s filed does not materialize into an
actual product or service, but as 3D printing technology continues to
progress and competition for delivery speed picks up, this is certainly
something I could see Amazon eventually putting to use. Now we just have
to wait for the drones which 3D print items 10,000 feet above the earth
and can deliver items within minutes.
As reported by USA Today: With all this talk of co-piloted and autonomous vehicles, one question stands out. If cars gradually are taking over more of our driving chores, can they do so safely and error-free? After all, the dark side of this rise-of-the-machines scenario is a rogue vehicle that catastrophically misreads the data flooding its sensors.
Freescale Semiconductor (FSL) aims to raise the bar on the quality of chips used in increasingly sentient vehicles. On Monday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the Austin-based company, which spun out of Motorola (MSI) in 2004 and is focusing on the booming Internet of Things space, announced a new S32V vision microprocessor. The company describes it as “the first automotive vision system-on-chip with the requisite reliability, safety and security measures to automate and ‘co-pilot’ a self-aware car.”
Translated into English, this simply means that Freescale’s new chip will to help automakers pack a new level of autonomy into future models that will require less of drivers by upping the processing power and reducing the error-rate from its onboard computer systems.
“You don’t want the silicon (chips) running your Candy Crush game driving your car,” says Matt Johnson, Freescale’s vice president and general manager of microcontrollers. “Right now, the focus is on assisting the driver with things like lane departure and collision avoidance. But soon we’ll have a radical shift to having the car in control. That means automotive-grade silicon that can function with higher temperatures and with zero defects.”
Johnson gives the example of a car loaded with radar, lidar (laser radar) and ultrasonic sensors, information from which all needs to be aggregated by the vehicle’s computers and turned into a split-second decision about whether to act or not. But the human-cost payoff of successfully integrating tech into cars is apparent.
“Roughly 90% of auto fatalities are due to human error,” he says. “It would be great to help reduce that.”
Given long automotive production cycles and inherent regulatory testing requirements, Johnson says the new S32V chip is likely to make its way into production models by 2020.
As reported by Wired: The arrival of new mobile processors rarely
qualifies as big news. But Intel’s latest family of chips, announced at
Mobile World Congress today, are both powerful and cheap, and are sure
to drive the industry trend of high-capability, low-cost smartphones to
even greater extremes.
The Atom X3, X5 and X7 processors will show up in a wide range of
2015’s smartphones and tablets. The processor family is arranged much
like its desktop Core “i” line, with the X3 being the lowest end of the
bunch. The X3 is Intel’s previously announced Project SoFIA
(“Smart or Feature phone with Intel Architecture”). It’s a cheap,
entry-level system-on-a-chip with either a 3G or 4G LTE modem,
Bluetooth, and x86 architecture-based application processors.
This chip is notable because it could enable much more capable phone
hardware at the $50 price point, which will be a huge boon to smartphone
adoption in developing nations. More than 20 device manufacturers have
signed on to incorporate this chip into their hardware designs. The
first devices incorporating the Atom X3 chip (in a dual-core 3G variety)
will arrive this quarter, while quad-core 3G and LTE versions will
arrive by the end of the first half of the year.
The X5 and X7 series, meanwhile, are Intel’s mainstream and high-end
mobile chipsets, and the first 14 nanometer SoCs for tablets. They have
double the graphics capabilities of Intel’s previous-generation chips,
without compromising battery life, and support features like Intel’s
RealSense 3-D experience (which we checked out on the Dell Venue 8 7000 tablet) as well as its TrueKey
face-recognition-based password authentication. You’ll find these two
chips on Android and Windows tablets from Acer, Lenovo, Dell, HP, Asus,
and Toshiba debuting during the first half of 2015.
Intel’s last hardware announcement for Mobile World Congress is a new
LTE Advanced modem, the XMM 7360. This is the chip that connects you to
your carrier’s wireless network, and with this one, Intel is promising
more stable connections and faster speeds. Appearing in devices
beginning the second half of the year, it’ll offer 450 Mbps down as well
as something called carrier aggregation, which basically makes data
usage more efficient, so users can get higher peak data rates.
You may wonder, with Intel’s huge focus on wearables in 2014,
where the smartwatches at? Intel hasn’t forgotten about your
wrist—company reps tell me we should expect more news on that front very
soon.
As reported by India.com: NASA astronauts successfully ended their third and last spacewalk on
March 1 to reassemble parts of the International Space Station (ISS) and
create parking slots for Boeing and Space Exploration Technologies
(SpaceX) which will provide commercial space taxis in the near future.
The Expedition 42 astronauts Terry Virts and Barry Wilmore ended
their spacewalk with the repressurisation of the Quest airlock. They
completed installing 400 feet of cable and several antennae associated
with the Common Communications for Visiting Vehicles system known as
C2V2. The five-hour, 38-minute spacewalk was the third for Virts and the
fourth for Wilmore.
Virts has now spent 19 hours and two minutes outside during his three
spacewalks. Wilmore now has spent 25 hours and 36 minutes in the void
of space during his four excursions. NASA crews have now spent a total
of 1,171 hours and 29 minutes conducting space station assembly and
maintenance during 187 spacewalks.
Boeing Crew Transportation System (CST)-100 and the SpaceX Crew
Dragon will use the system in the coming years for rendezvous with the
orbital laboratory and deliver crews to the space station, the US space
agency said in a statement.
The US space agency is all set to perform three spacewalks — the
first one scheduled for Saturday — to reassemble parts of the
International Space Station (ISS) to create parking slots for Boeing and
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) — two commercial space
taxis. NASA has awarded contracts to Boeing and SpaceX to develop, test
and fly capsules that can ferry astronauts to and from the station.
According to SpaceX, the upgraded Dragon V2 passenger spacecraft
should be ready for an unmanned debut test flight to the station in late
2016 and a crewed test flight in early 2017. Boeing plans to dock an
unmanned CST-100 test flight to the station in April 2017.
