China Launches 20th BeiDou GNSS Satellite

As reported by InsideGNSS: China launched a new-generation satellite into orbit that will support its GNSS network at 7:13 a.m. Beijing Time Wednesday, September 30, 2015.
 
According to the China state news agency Xinhua, the spacecraft was launched from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the southwestern province of Sichuan on a Long March-3B carrier rocket. It was the 20th satellite for the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) and for the first time featured a hydrogen maser atomic clock.
 
A series of tests related to the clock and a new Phase III navigation signal will be undertaken, according to a statement from the China Satellite Navigation Office.

Las Vegas Bets that SpaceX Will Make it to Mars Before NASA

As reported by Engadget: NASA may believe that it'll be the first to land humans on Mars, but don't tell that to Las Vegas betting houses. Popular Mechanics has asked Docsports' Raphael Esparza to set odds for the first organization to put people on Mars, and he believes that SpaceX stands a much better chance of reaching the Red Planet (5 to 1) than anyone else, including NASA (80 to 1). To put it bluntly, SpaceX has the money and the motivation that others don't -- NASA would be the favorite, but its budget cuts are holding it back.

With that in mind, you might not want to make a wager just yet. Esparza's odds for latecomers like China and Europe (100 to 1 and 300 to 1) are plausible, but he gives the crew at Mars One better odds than NASA (15 to 1) despite serious concerns about both its safety and plans to fund the trip through a reality TV show. Although there is a case to be made for private explorers getting to Mars ahead of government agencies, we wouldn't rule out countries with the political and scientific incentives to pursue a manned Martian expedition.

Tesla Cars Will Reach 620 Miles On A Single Charge “Within A Year Or Two,” Be Fully Autonomous In “Three Years”

As reported by TechCrunch: Tesla CEO Elon Musk sat down with a Danish TV show last week and had some interesting predictions to share.

Asked, for example, when he thought the company could produce a car that can “break 1,000 kilometers” (or 620 miles) on a single charge, he said his guess would be “within a year or two,” adding, “2017 for sure.”

As readers might recall, a new record was established last month by one enthusiastic Model S owner, who drove a painful 24-miles-per hour to make it a stunning 452.8 miles on a single charge. (The car is advertised as having a 265-mile range.)

Musk didn’t elaborate on whether someone would need to drive just as slowly to reach 620 miles in 2017. We’d guess that’s not what he had in mind, though.

Musk also said that self-driving Tesla cars are around the corner.

Already, owners of Tesla’s Model S models are expecting a software update that will allow their cars to start driving themselves in a hands-free mode that Musk calls “auto pilot.” Musk told the Danish interviewer that the software is still being beta-tested and will “hopefully go into wide release next month.”

(A March New York Times story reported the software would be released this past summer. It also noted that “serious questions remain about whether such autonomous driving is actually legal.”)

Perhaps more notably, Musk is now saying that Tesla cars should have “full autonomy” in “approximately three years.”

As for when regulators are ready to sanction self-driving technologies, they  “probably will not allow for full autonomy for one to three years after that,” said Musk. “It depends on the market. Some will be more forward-leaning than others.”

Perhaps emboldened by Musk’s seeming candor, the interviewer also asked Musk what cars will look like 20 years from now.

Musk — who has famously argued that we need to put one million people on Mars to ensure the future of mankind — thought for a second. Then he said matter-of-factly: “I hope civilization is still around in 20 years.”

Here’s the full interview:

Nissan's New Concept Car is a Digital Canvas

As reported by ITWorld: Nissan's latest concept car will pass the digital cool test but it won't do much to stop distracted driving: the entire dashboard is one huge display on which drivers and passengers can post anything.

The car, due to be unveiled at this month's Tokyo Motor Show, has the snappy name "Teatro for Dayz" and the display concept spreads throughout the entire car to include the seats and even displays on the outside of the vehicle.

Nissan says it's designed for "digital natives," who are accustomed to using digital devices to share content so why should the car be any different?

Nissan's Teatro for Dayz concept car.

The car is the result of "extensive" surveys with the younger generation that came to the conclusion that, according to Nissan, young people "feel that time spent in a car should be time for connecting and sharing experiences with friends."

And so the car includes a camera, so drivers can instantly share what's going on in and around the vehicle with their friends.

As a concept car, the Teatro for Dayz is meant to attract attention and get people thinking differently about what a car could be like in the future.

It's not meant to be a fully thought out design that's ready for the market, which is probably just as well as the solid white seats wouldn't make for a very comfortable drive. Presumably, the younger generation haven't given up comfort for digital cleverness.

Nissan's Teatro for Dayz concept car.

So look at the image above and you'll see the seats, headrests, and instrument panel are digital screens on which the driver and passenger can project anything. Nissan calls it a "clean canvas."

The display function only works when the car is parked. In drive mode, all the driver can see are the various meters and controls necessary to drive the car and any maps that might be needed. All can be resized at will.

But what the car is really all about is grabbing the attention of young people, so they turn into car buyers and don't just rely on services like ZipCar or Uber.

"We can no longer attract their attention with the same old values," Nissan said in a statement while acknowledging "what moves kids today is not what moved their parents."

Nissan's Teatro for Dayz concept car.  The Teatro for Dayz is an electric car, seen above in recharging mode. Notice how the door trim provides an update on the charging progress?

The car will be on show at the Tokyo Motor Show, which begins on Oct. 30.

Nissan isn't the first car company to think about lots of displays in a concept. At the beginning of the year, Mercedes Benz showed off its F015 concept, which envelopes passengers with displays. The seats look slightly more comfortable and the F015 is also ready for self-driving with driver and passenger seats that turn around.

The interior of the Mercedes Benz F015 concept car has seats that face each other because the car will do all the driving, seen here at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit on January 13, 2015.

Tesla Unveils Its Model X, Complete With A 'Bioweapon Defense' Button

As reported by NPR: Tesla unveiled its much-anticipated Model X on Tuesday night after nearly two years of delays.

CEO Elon Musk took the wraps off the all-electric SUV at an event near the Tesla factory in Fremont, Calif. As an added bonus, he gave keys to a handful of lucky customers who can now call themselves owners of one of the most sought-after vehicles.

Let's go over some of the vitals.

Tesla's website says the "Model X is the safest, fastest and most capable sport utility vehicle in history." It can seat seven adults and go from zero to 60 miles per hour in 3.8 seconds — 3.2 seconds with what the automaker calls "Ludicrous Speed Upgrade." It's also equipped with a 90 kilowatt-hour battery, which in layman's terms means the SUV can drive some 250 miles before its next charge.

But its most visually striking feature is the rear-seat "Falcon Wing doors" that lift upward instead of swinging outward. USA Today notes that one reason for the vehicle's delay was that Tesla wanted to ensure the doors worked properly. The newspaper adds:

Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks during an event in Fremont, Calif., to launch the new Tesla Model X Crossover SUV.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

"It also comes with what Tesla describes as one of the largest windshields ever put on a vehicle. The windshield extends all the way past the top of the driver's head. Front passengers will get not only a panoramic view of the road, but of the trees and sky passing by."

Musk played up the Model X's safety features, saying it received a five-star rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Automatic emergency braking and side-collision avoidance systems are standard. And then there's what Tesla calls "bioweapon defense mode," should drivers find themselves cruising along the highway in the midst of an Armageddon-type scenario.

Musk claims the bioweapon button really does work, The Verge reports:

"The button should come in handy 'if there's ever an apocalyptic scenario of some kind,' [Musk] said. All you apparently have to do is push the button and the Model X's air filter — which is about 10 times larger than a normal car's air filter — should be able to keep you safe. The company claims it's 300 times better at filtering bacteria, 500 times better at filtering allergens, 700 times better at filtering smog, and 800 times better at filtering viruses."

But is the Model X — with a price upward of $130,000 — something that people will really want to drive? Here's how Wired answers that question:

"Although the X shares much of its DNA with the impressive Model S P90D sedan, in many ways it eclipses that phenomenal car. It's not just the design, which is futuristic without being weird. It's not just the performance, which is holy s [—-] fast. And it's not even the dramatic "falcon" doors that lift like the wings of a bird.

It's how all of those features come together in a vehicle that somehow makes an SUV not just cool, but desirable."

Wired also says this vehicle is intended to show that the luxury automaker is more than a one-hit wonder.

Production is expected to kick into overdrive next year when Tesla ramps up production of both the Model X and S vehicles, according to the Los Angeles Times.

"Tesla expects sales to grow now that it has entries in what amounts to about 3% of the U.S. auto market. The electric car company expects to deliver about 50,000 vehicles this year — including sales in overseas markets.

...

"But Tesla anticipates that production will ramp up quickly next year. It projects manufacturing roughly 85,000 to 90,000 Model X and S vehicles next year. Analysts will be looking at the mix of vehicle sales to see if the Model X eats into sales of the flagship Model S."

T-Mobile Expands Simple Global Coverage to All of Europe and South America

As reported by MacRumors: T-Mobile has announced the expansion of its Simple Global coverage to an additional 20 countries to now cover all of Europe and South America. Simple Global is now available in the Bahamas and 145 total countries worldwide, covering more than 90% of the areas that Americans travel abroad each year. 

Simple Global provides Simple Choice postpaid customers with unlimited low-speed data and texting at no extra cost, and flat-rate calls for 20 cents per minute, outside of the United States. It is complemented by Mobile Without Borders, which allows full talk, text and 4G LTE data usage in Canada and Mexico at no extra cost.

“We’ve just made your traveling even easier in 20 more destinations around the world, expanding Simple Global to cover all of Europe and all of South America,” said John Legere, president and CEO of T-Mobile. “The carriers have made billions overcharging consumers who just want to stay connected overseas, and we’ve changed all that! Today, we made it even simpler to text, search or keep up on social media in a total of 145 countries and destinations, all at no extra cost!”

Simple Global is now available in these additional countries and destinations: 

• Caribbean: Bahamas, Haiti
• Europe: Albania, Belarus, Bosnia, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Monaco, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, Guernsey, Alderney, Jersey, Sark, Isle of Man
• Others: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan

Simple Global provides a standard data speed of 128 Kbps. No tethering is allowed.

The Air Traffic Control Tower Of The Future Doesn’t Include Humans

As reported by Americans.org: Sweden is trying to make flying safer by testing an unmanned control tower that will remove some of the human element out of guiding airplanes.

At the Ornskoldsvik Airport, one control tower has nobody inside. However, the tower continues to perform its job of guiding planes to the ground safely. The person who controls the landing is in another complex, roughly 90 miles away. That individual has access to cameras which reportedly function better than the average human eye.

The system was developed by Saab, best known for its sporty cars and even sportier fighter planes.

Experts in the industry are thrilled about the recent technology upgrade. Searidge Technologies representative Pat Urbanke says, “There is a lot of good camera technology that can do things that the human eye can’t.”

This camera technology can supposedly see better than humans in troubling conditions, such as in the dark and in fog.

There are still legal hurdles that must be crossed before this technology can be fully put into place. However, the Ornskoldsvik Airport is serving as a useful testing ground.

Utilizing this technology is expensive, as it costs an average of $175,000 per year for one controller. It would cost six times this amount to put it to use full-time at Ornskoldsvik, which still mostly uses traditional manned control towers. After the initial cost the operating expenses are minimal relative to their human counterparts.

The 80 foot tall unmanned tower at the airport houses 14 high-definition cameras. Video from the cameras is transmitted to Sunvsal Airport, where a controller guides the planes.

Potential future plans include grouping every airport controller together at distant facilities in order to save costs of running multiple air traffic control towers.

According to experts at the LVF Group, computers are quicker than humans at recognizing differences in the transmission by about one second, a critical amount of time in the high stakes world of passenger aviation. Saab representative Niclas Gustavsson thinks that “eventually there will be no (manned) towers built at all.”

The cameras include microphones which transmit the sound of the airplane yet air traffic controllers testing the equipment are still getting used to the lack of real airplane sounds at the distant facility.

High-pressure wind is pumped over the lenses of the cameras in order to keep them clean of debris, such as insects and dust. The cameras are able to withstand extreme temperature shifts as well.

Saab, the company responsible for this technology, says that the company plans to expand this program beyond Sweden, eyeing Norway and Australia next. The United States will also become a testing ground, as Leesburg in Virginia already has an unmanned tower in place. Trial runs at Leesburg began early last month.

Meanwhile, Searidge Technologies, a rival of Saab, has goals of building an unmanned tower for Hungary’s main airport in Budapest. This airport has around 8.5 million customers on an annual basis. Searidge hopes to have the tower constructed and operating by 2017.