Lifeboat Foundation

With US car thefts up 25.1% since 2019, it’s clear that high-tech key fob immobilizers aren’t cutting the mustard. But this might: UMich researchers have created a charmingly low-tech anti-theft device that turns the whole car into a security keypad.

Keyless entry and ignition are a brilliant step up in convenience from the old “stick key in hole and turn” method of starting cars, but thieves and hackers with a bit of know-how and some specialist gear are finding late-model keyless cars quick and easy to break into and steal. Between this kind of thing and Tik Tok car theft challenges, criminals are having a field day in the post-COVID era.

A team at the University of Michigan has come up with a fun solution that doesn’t use wireless signals at all. The “Battery Sleuth,” as they’ve called it, sits between the car’s battery and its electrical system, and measures fluctuations in voltage, looking for a specific set of voltage changes that act as a secret handshake of sorts between driver and car. Only when this handshake is complete will the device let the full power of the battery through to fire up the starter motor.

Credit: Hyundai Motor Group.

During a press conference held yesterday in Seoul, South Korea, Hyundai Motor Group revealed plans for a new generation of high-tech cars incorporating nanoscale features, which it hopes to begin mass producing by 2025–2026.

Continue reading “Hyundai to use nanotechnology in cars from 2025–2026” »

Built using inexpensive semiconductors, the device packs all components to make hydrogen and can be scaled.

A research team led by Aditya Mohite, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Rice University in the US, has designed a device that can use sunlight to generate hydrogen, with a record efficiency of 20.8 percent, a press release said.

Hydrogen is being touted as the future of clean energy due to its high energy density that could be deployed even to fly large planes. However, the process of generating hydrogen is currently heavily dependent on fossil fuels. For hydrogen to herald a new future in clean energy, it needs to be produced sustainably and without carbon emissions.

The most basic version of Unitree Go2 costs $1,600.

Robotic dogs have been made very accessible today by big players like Boston Dynamics and Unitree. You can order a robodog today, and it will be at your doorstep by October.

Continue reading “Thanks to GPT, now you can have conversations with Unitree’s new AI robodog” »

Elon Musk confirmed that Tesla is currently in ‘early’ discussions to license its self-driving technology with a ‘major’ automaker.

At the end of his opening remarks for Tesla’s Q2 2022 earnings call following the release of the automaker’s financial results, CEO Elon Musk said that he wanted to “strongly emphasize” that Tesla is open to licensing its self-driving technology to other automakers.

That’s something that the CEO has been frequently mentioning as of late.

Shares in Elon Musk’s EV maker could hit $350, analyst Dan Ives wrote in a new research note following its second-quarter results.

Elon Musk is pushing hard to complete development of its Full Self-Driving software and power forward with its Optimus robot program as it looks to celebrate its own “ChatGPT moment”.

It should be ready by the end of 2024 but can we take Musk’s word at face value when it comes to deadlines?

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has committed to spending a billion dollars to build the Dojo supercomputer over the next year, Bloomberg.

Continue reading “Elon Musk commits $1 billion toward building Tesla’s Dojo supercomputer” »

Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed Wednesday that the automaker is “in discussion with major OEMs about using Tesla FSD.”

Tesla Full Self-Driving is the automaker’s beta advanced driving assistance system (ADAS) that can automate driving tasks on highways and urban streets. If other automakers were to adopt FSD technology, they would need to onboard both Tesla’s software and hardware suite. Tesla’s approach to ADAS, and ultimately to autonomy, is to rely only on computer vision processing, or cameras, rather than a range of sensors like lidar and radar.

During Wednesday’s second quarter earnings call, Musk also said Tesla will allow the transfer of FSD software to new vehicles, but only in the third quarter.