Lifeboat Foundation

Airbus introduces the aviation world to a mini-plane called THOR (Test of High-tech Objectives in Reality). It is the first aircraft to be produced using 3D printing technology.

Airbus, a leading aircraft manufacturer, has just unleashed THOR—Test of High-tech Objectives in Reality—a miniature aircraft constructed from 3D printing technology. The windowless, pilotless, and propeller-driven THOR weighs in at 21 kg, and measures less than 4 m long.

Though it is much smaller than a regular jet, THOR is capable of stable flight and even promises to save on time, fuel and money.

Continue reading “Meet THOR—a Lightweight Mini-Plane Fresh out of the 3D Printer” »

I’m ready for this.

Elon Musk is known for his optimistic deadlines, but this one is very aggressive.

The Tesla CEO spoke at the Code Conference on Wednesday night and predicted that we’re closer to self-driving cars than anybody thinks. “I think we are less than two years away from complete autonomy, safer than humans, but regulations should take at least another year,” Musk said.

While many auto and tech companies—from Google to Uber and GM to Lyft and Apple to Ford—are researching and testing autonomous vehicles, the Tesla seems on the verge of announcing that its Model 3 consumer sedan will have full self-driving capabilities.

Continue reading “Elon Musk: We Are Less Than Two Years From Complete Car Autonomy” »

Over the past couple of months, Google’s parent company Alphabet has been looking to offload its robotics division, Boston Dynamics, as it seeks to divert its attention to self-driving cars. Toyota’s Research Institute was thought to interested in picking up the company from the start, but Nikkei is now reporting that the car maker’s R&D arm is close to signing a deal for not only Boston Dynamics, but also Google’s Japanese robotics company, Schaft.

According to the newspaper, the Toyota Research Institute will use its $1 billion budget to purchase both companies. The Institute was established in November 2015 to develop AI, robotics and autonomous car technologies and opened its first facility in Silicon Valley in January.

Earlier this week, Tech Insider reported that the “ink is nearly dry” on the deal, suggesting it won’t be long until Alphabet and Toyota formally announce the trade. It added autonomous vehicle specialist Jaybridge Robotics to its team in March, now it’s looking to bolster its team ahead of a possible rollout of self-driving cars in 2020. Let’s hope Spot, Atlas and AlphaDog make the journey too.

A 3D printed motorcycle weighs only 77 pounds.

The world’s first 3D printed motorcycle weighs only 77 pounds and is absolutely beautiful.

But it will cost you.

A beautiful thought — can you imagine your auto protecting you from criminals?

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — While much of the media attention around autonomous vehicle technology has been focused on fully self-driving cars, consumers shouldn’t expect cars that act like chauffeurs any time soon.

The vast majority of mainstream vehicles adopting autonomous driving features will be controlled by advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) or “guardian angels” that learn over time, Gil Pratt, CEO Toyota Research Institute, told reporters and analysts last week.

Continue reading “A.I. guardian-angel vehicles will dominate auto industry, says Toyota exec” »

The cars can emit different types of honks depending on the situation.

This is one of those “therotical” topics that many of us have had at some point in our lives with our engineering team pals, or with our research department/ lab buddies. Fun to see Elon Musk share his views on this topic. Who knows; maybe? Last week, we learned that black holes may be nothing more that a multi-layer hologram in space.

“There’s a billion to one chance we’re living in base reality,” Elon Musk said tonight on stage at Recode’s Code Conference, meaning that one of the most influential and powerful figures in tech thinks that it’s overwhelmingly likely we’re just characters living inside a simulation.

The Verge co-founder Josh Topolsky got half-way through asking Musk if he thought our existence was simulated before the Tesla CEO jumped in to finish his question for him. “I’ve had so many simulation discussions it’s crazy,” Musk explained. “You’ve thought about this?” Topolsky asked. “A lot,” Musk replied. “It got to the point where every conversation was the AI / simulation conversation, and my brother and I agreed that we would ban such conversations if we were ever in a hot tub.”

Continue reading “Odds are we’re living in a simulation, says Elon Musk” »

Ivan made it in the major news this week again.

As if the world didn’t have enough problems, Russia is apparently creating a scary humanoid robotic soldier, affectionately being called “Ivan the Terminator.” Thank God they didn’t call it the T-800. The idea of the robot is to eventually replace humans on the battlefield. For now, these robotic avatars are remote-controlled using special suits worn by a human, but you know that won’t last long. One day they will be doing stuff on their own.

This robot (shown below) will accurately repeat the exact movement of the user by reading the fine motor skills of the neck, shoulder, hands and fingers. So if you raise your rifle to fire and pull the trigger, the robot will do just that. But it isn’t limited to just that kind of work, it can even drive a vehicle by automatically scanning the road for blockages or barriers. So it could give chase to enemies.