the digest(Page 158)

Latest in the digest

Police charged a man with careless driving for flossing his teeth while his Autopilot-enabled Tesla Model S was driving 84 miles per hour.

Man Cited for Flossing Teeth While Autopilot Drove Tesla 84 MPH

By Kristin Houser

New research suggests that the Big Bang theory could be off: some assumptions about the early unvierse don't match the actual data.

Science & Energy

Another Astronomer Says the Big Bang Might Not Have Happened

By Dan Robitzski

Panasonic showed off a VR glasses prototype that looks more like something out of a 90s steampunk movie at this year's CES in Las Vegas.

Virtual Reality

Panasonic’s VR Glasses Are Unlike Any You’ve Seen Before

By Victor Tangermann

Japanese robotics company Vstone has created Hiro-chan, a faceless robot baby that transitions from crying to laughing when held.

Japanese Company Thinks Seniors Will Love Its Faceless Robot Baby

By Kristin Houser

Netherlands-based startup Hydraloop has developed a wardrobe-sized device that can sterilize and reuse household water, saving you money.

This Giant Box is a Waste Water Treatment Plant For Your Home

By Victor Tangermann

Two more United States websites have been hacked to display pro-Iranian propaganda, though it's still unclear whether Iran itself is behind the attacks.

Two More US Sites Hacked With Pro-Iran Propaganda

By Kristin Houser

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa is testing the theory that a basic income could increase happiness — by giving away $9 million to his Twitter followers.

Universal Basic Income

Japanese Billionaire Giving Out $9 Million in Basic Income Trial

By Kristin Houser

A glitch in the Boeing 737 Next Generation (NG) airplane's software caused all six of the main screens inside the cockpit to go blank during landing.

Advanced Transport

Boeing 737 Glitch Shuts Down Cockpit Screens on Certain Runways

By Victor Tangermann

While the massive Australian fires were often treated as a local story, they could have massive, far-reaching effects on the global environment and climate.

The Huge Australian Fires Could Change the Entire Earth’s Climate

By Dan Robitzski

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says the terminal used to connect to the Starlink internet network will look like "a thin, flat, round UFO on a stick."

Elon Musk: You’ll Connect to Starlink With “UFO on a Stick”

By Kristin Houser

NASA released a new panorama image of the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Aside from looking cool, it could help reveal how the galactic core operates.

Science & Energy

Check Out This Incredibly Beautiful New Image of Our Home Galaxy

By Dan Robitzski

U.S. airline Delta is partnering with Sarcos Robotics to test out if its Guardian XO exosuits can give its employees a hand with lifting heavy things.

This Airline Is Testing Powered Exoskeletons For Luggage Workers

By Victor Tangermann

Tesla shares surged at the beginning of this year, making it the most valuable U.S. auto maker of all time, as The Wall Street Journal reports.

Tesla Is Now the Most Valuable Auto Company In US History

By Victor Tangermann

Startup Ao Air has announced a $350 face mask called the Atmos Faceware, a gadget that promises to protect its wearer against dangerous air pollution.

This $350 Breathing Mask Is Cashing in on Climate Change

By Victor Tangermann

On Monday, SpaceX deployed 60 Starlink satellites, enough to earn the company the title of world's largest commercial satellite operator.

SpaceX Deploys 60 More of Its Controversial Starlink Satellites

By Kristin Houser

China is reportedly working on a "laser attack platform" for cannons that can be attached to its military's planes, the South China Morning Post reports.

China Wants to Mount Laser Cannons on Its Fighter Jets

By Victor Tangermann

Impossible Foods’ Fake Pork Looks Absolutely Scrumptious

Impossible Foods’ Fake Pork Looks Absolutely Scrumptious

By Victor Tangermann

Helen Sharman, the first British astronaut, firmly believes that aliens exist and that they may even be on the Earth already.

UK’s First Astronaut: Aliens Definitely Exist, May Be on Earth

By Kristin Houser

For the second time ever, scientists found a repeating radio burst from deep space. This time, it came from a galaxy that resembles the Milky Way.

Science & Energy

Astronomers Capture Repeating Radio Burst From Spiral Galaxy

By Dan Robitzski

Elon Musk surprised the audience during an event at Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory by briefly showing off his awkward dance moves.

Watch Elon Musk’s “NSFW” Dance at Chinese Tesla Factory

By Kristin Houser

Intense cosmic rays given off by short-lived stars are bombarding a nearby galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, from within.

Science & Energy

Intense Stellar Activity Is Ripping Apart a Nearby Galaxy

By Dan Robitzski

Facebook Bans All Deepfakes

Facebook Bans All Deepfakes

By Victor Tangermann

Hackers placed a pro-Iran propaganda image of U.S. President Donald Trump being punched in the face on the homepage of a U.S. government-run website.

US Website Defaced With Pro-Iran Propaganda, Bloody Trump Face

By Kristin Houser

Boeing is investigating whether a wiring oversight in the 737 Max commercial airplane could potentially result in a crash.

Advanced Transport

Boeing Finds Even More Issues With Its Troubled 737 Max Plane

By Victor Tangermann

Newly leaked videos and a tweet by Pranav Mistry offer a sneak peak at NEON, a Samsung project focused on the creation of "artificial humans."

Artificial Intelligence

Samsung’s Artificial Humans Look Eerily, Well, Human

By Kristin Houser

The fires currently raging in Australia are turning New Zealand's glaciers brown and potentially speeding up their melting.

Science & Energy

The Fires in Australia Are Turning Distant Glaciers Brown

By Kristin Houser

A team of astronomers combined data from three different NASA observatories to create a 3-D visualization of the Crab Nebula.

Science & Energy

Check Out the 3D Wreckage From This Exploded Star

By Victor Tangermann

Elon Musk tweeted that Tesla may consider adding an anti-dooring feature to protect bicyclists by keeping doors locked until they pass.

Elon Musk: Teslas Might Prevent Riders From Dooring Bicyclists

By Dan Robitzski

Bosch has come up with a clever car windshield cover featuring an AI LCD panel to cast a shadow on the driver's eyes, blocking out only a small portion.

Artificial Intelligence

This Clever Car Add-On Uses AI to Block Out Just The Sun

By Victor Tangermann

Airbnb uses an AI-powered tool to rate guests' likelihood of exhibiting "untrustworthy" traits, such as narcissism, Machiavellianism, and even psychopathy.

Artificial Intelligence

Airbnb Claims Its AI Can Predict Whether Guests Are Psychopaths

By Kristin Houser

Nissan exec Ivan Espinosa said that the weight of the charging cable can make owning an electric vehicle (EV) a hassle for female drivers.

Advanced Transport

Nissan Exec Suggests EV Charging Is Too Hard for Women

By Kristin Houser

Images of the Australian wildfires taken from space show the full extent of the devastation, putting the ongoing catastrophe in terrifying context.

The Australian Wildfires Are So Bad You Can See Them From Space

By Kristin Houser

The newly announced Segway S-Pod transportation scooter looks eerily similar to the hover chairs featured in the dystopian Pixar film "WALL-E.

Advanced Transport

Segway’s New “Personal Transporter Pod” Looks Really Familiar

By Kristin Houser

A team of MIT scientists belive that the magnetic field of the Moon was caused by a crystallizing iron core "dynamo" about a billion years ago.

Science & Energy

MIT: A “Dynamo” Inside the Moon Shut Down a Billion Years Ago

By Victor Tangermann

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have announced the Earthshot Prize, an initiative designed to solve Earth's greatest environmental problems before 2030.

UK Royals’ “Earthshot Prize” Aims to Save the Planet by 2030

By Kristin Houser

Scientists at Stanford have created a silicon microchip that can act as a particle accelerator — a kind of scientific instrument that usually is far larger.

Science & Energy

This Tiny Particle Accelerator Fits on a Microchip

By Victor Tangermann

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine proposed to send Japanese astronauts to the Moon in the late 2020s as part of a joint plan with the US.

NASA Proposed Sending Japanese Astronauts to the Moon

By Victor Tangermann

Tokyo's Penguin Café hosts a popular event for robot dogs and their owners, many of whom dress the bots up, and even celebrate their birthday at the cafe.

A Japanese Cafe Is Hosting Playdates, Parties for Robot Dogs

By Kristin Houser

Soon after the launch of Pokémon Go, players reportedly began wandering onto Canadian military property in pursuit of the game's virtual creatures.

Pokémon Go Led to a Surge in Trespassers on Military Bases

By Kristin Houser

CEO Elon Musk has dropped yet another hint that a Tesla Cybertruck could be headed to Mars aboard a SpaceX Starship rocket.

Elon Musk Hints That a Cybertruck Is Headed to Mars

By Kristin Houser

Mysterious Swarms of Giant Drones Have Officials Baffled

Mysterious Swarms of Giant Drones Have Officials Baffled

By Kristin Houser

Man Sues Amazon, Claims Ring Camera Hackers Harassed His Kids

Man Sues Amazon, Claims Ring Camera Hackers Harassed His Kids

By Kristin Houser

Samsung has built an "artificial human" called NEON that it plans to unveil at the Consumer Electronics Show kicking off on January 7.

Artificial Intelligence

Samsung Tweets Cryptic Plans to Unveil an “Artificial Human”

By Kristin Houser

A team of scientists detailed how 143 countries could transition to 100 percent clean energy by 2050 or possibly even sooner.

Scientists: Total Transition to Clean Energy Possible by 2050

By Dan Robitzski

China successfully launched its largest and most powerful rocket, the Long March-5 Yaosan, after a 2017 attempt ended in failure.

China Successfully Launches Powerful Long March 5 Rocket

By Victor Tangermann

YouTube deleted hundreds of cryptocurrency videos earlier this week. Now it says they're back and called the whole thing a mistake.

YouTube Calls Mass Deletion of Cryptocurrency Videos a Mistake

By Dan Robitzski

Sightings of "strange lights" in the Montana night sky turned out to be SpaceX's Starlink satellites and not UFOs like locals thought.

People Keep Mistaking SpaceX’s Satellites for Alien Spacecraft

By Victor Tangermann

It's becoming increasingly likely that Japan's decision will be to dump the radioactive water stored at the Fukushima power plant into the ocean.

Japan’s Radioactive Water Will Go Into the Ocean or Atmosphere

By Dan Robitzski

Russian YouTubers have converted an old VAZ 2109 angular hatchback into a knockoff Tesla Cybertruck, stainless steel "exoskeleton" and all.

Advanced Transport

You Can Now Buy a Knockoff Cybertruck for $10,800

By Victor Tangermann

The radioactivity from a nuclear blast in space could disable crucial satellites, so the military is trying to find a way to scrub them clean.

The Military Is Unprepared for Nuclear Strikes on Satellites

By Dan Robitzski

A team of physicists at Lancaster University have found that LEGO bricks are excellent insulators a couple of millidegrees above absolute zero.

Science & Energy

LEGO Bricks Are Excellent Insulators at Cryogenic Temps

By Victor Tangermann

Russia says that it has an operational hypersonic weapon — the world's first — and plans to mount it on an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Russia Becomes First Nation with an Operational Hypersonic Weapon

By Dan Robitzski

German automaker Volkswagen has unveiled a robot that can autonomously take care of charging your electric car without the need of any human interaction.

Self-Driving Vehicles

Volkswagen Unveils Robot That Autonomously Charges Electric Cars

By Victor Tangermann

Boeing's Starliner may not have reached the International Space Station on its first mission, but astronauts are still excited about the spacecraft.

International Space Station

Astronauts “Can’t Wait” to Try out Starliner Despite ISS Failure

By Kristin Houser

Scientists just shared new information on the bizarre class of exoplanets that they'e named "super-puffs" due to their cotton candy-like fluffiness.

Science & Energy

These Rare Exoplanets Have the “Density of Cotton Candy”

By Dan Robitzski

Criminals are using drones to drop items infected with swine flu on herds of pigs in order to force farmers to sell the animals cheaply.

Chinese Farmers: Criminals Are Using Drones to Infect Our Pigs

By Kristin Houser

General Motors is currently lobbying the federal government for permission to test — on public roads — self-driving cars that don't have steering wheels.

Self-Driving Vehicles

General Motors Wants Self-Driving Cars to Lose the Steering Wheel

By Dan Robitzski

The United States Navy bans its members from using short video sharing app TikTok on their government-issued mobile devices.

Navy Bans TikTok, Calling It a “Cybersecurity Threat”

By Kristin Houser

Russia's floating nuclear power plant, Akademik Lomonosov, is now operational and generating power for the town of Pevek.

Russia’s Floating Nuclear Power Plant Began Generating Electricity

By Dan Robitzski

A memo obtained by The Hollywood Reporter suggests that distributor Universal has notified thousands of theaters that they'll receive a new "Cats" version.

The “Cats” Movie Was So Awful They Patched It

By Victor Tangermann

An engineer strapped propellers onto a robot vacuum, creating the ultimate abomination: a Roomba that kicks up more dust than it cleans.

This Madman Built a Flying Robot Vacuum Cleaner

By Dan Robitzski

Authorities have identified the green slime oozing onto a highway in Michigan as groundwater contaminated with a cancer-causing chemical.

Science & Energy

Green Slime Oozing Onto US Highway Tracked to Illegal Waste Site

By Kristin Houser

Baltimore police will spend half of 2020 surveilling the entire city with a network of spy planes, putting everyone under constant monitoring.

Baltimore Police Plan to Monitor the Whole City With Spy Planes

By Dan Robitzski

Team Trees, a tree-planting campaign backed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, has officially met its fundraising goal of $20 million.

Elon Musk-Backed Tree-Planting Campaign Meets $20 Million Goal

By Kristin Houser