the digest (Page 163)

Latest in the digest

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi compared his company's self-driving car killing someone to Saudi Arabia murdering a journalist, calling both simple mistakes.

Self-Driving Vehicles

Uber CEO Compares Self-Driving Car Crash to Murdering Journalists

By Dan Robitzski

A video has surfaced showing a driverless Tesla moving at a brisk pace through a mall parking lot — on the wrong side of the road.

Driverless Tesla Found Driving in Wrong Lane in a Parking Lot

By Victor Tangermann

NASA scientists detected a thermonuclear explosion in space, which they believe was caused by a fusion reaction on the surface of a pulsar.

Science & Energy

Scientists Detect Huge Thermonuclear Blast in Deep Space

By Dan Robitzski

Someone just released a massive amount of data from Iron March, one of the most influential neo-Nazi websites in the world.

Someone Published All the Membership Data From a Neo-Nazi Website

By Kristin Houser

A number of Trump advisers have offered their "modernized" vision of national parks and campgrounds, including WiFi, food trucks, even Amazon deliveries.

Science & Energy

Trump Advisers Want to Get WiFi, Amazon Deliveries in National Parks

By Victor Tangermann

The top trends on Twitter included X-rated terms and references to sexual violence that somehow got past its content moderation tools.

Robots and Machines

Twitter Accidentally Trends Horrifyingly Explicit Sexual Terms

By Dan Robitzski

India's space agency is waiting for the green light on a planned mission to visit and map out the entire surface of Venus.

Science & Energy

India’s Space Agency Wants to Explore Venus

By Dan Robitzski

In a video uploaded by MIT's Biomimetics department, nine Mini Cheetah robots can be seen rustling up some autumn leaves and doing the occasional backflip.

Watch a Pack of MIT’s Mini Robots Cavort in Autumn Leaves

By Victor Tangermann

A glitch by third-party text platform Syniverse resulted in the delayed delivery of thousands of texts originally penned on Valentine's Day.

People Are Suddenly Getting Texts From Last Valentine’s Day

By Kristin Houser

SpaceX has released an amazing video that shows half of a nose cone (or fairing) from a Falcon Heavy rocket plummet back own to Earth.

Watch a Piece of a SpaceX Rocket Careen Back Down to Earth

By Victor Tangermann

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk elaborated on his extremely ambitious plans to establish a sustainable settlement on Mars by sending 1,000 Starship rockets.

Elon Musk: I Can Build a Martian City With 1,000 Starships

By Victor Tangermann

Researchers have created an unsinkable metal by using lasers to etch an air-trapping pattern onto an aluminum structure's surface.

Science & Energy

Watch a Piece of Metal Refuse to Sink in Water

By Kristin Houser

In September 2020, Italy will begin making it mandatory for students to learn about climate change in school for 33 hours per year.

Italy Will Soon Force Public Schools to Teach Climate Change

By Kristin Houser

Asked whether it's ever been in love, Sophia the Robot told the crowd at the 2019 Web Summit that "No. I don't do sexual activities."

Sophia the Robot Tells Crowded Room That It Doesn’t Have Sex

By Dan Robitzski

Artificial intelligence startup OpenAI has released the full version of GPT-2, an algorithm capable of writing coherent paragraphs of text.

OpenAI Just Released the AI It Said Was Too Dangerous to Share

By Kristin Houser

Elon Musk says he's "looking into" making a Tesla feature that turns off proximity sensors while people wait in drive-through lanes.

Elon Musk Alarmed That Teslas Beep Constantly in Drive-Thru Lanes

By Dan Robitzski

A Redditor designed a hat to thwart facial recognition by literally putting on a picture of Chinese President XI Jinping's face which blocks their face.

This Ingenious Hat Blocks Facial Recognition

By Dan Robitzski

Geneticist Chris Mason has an unusual idea for helping future astronauts survive the trip to Mars: gene-hack them with tardigrade DNA that blocks radiation.

This Scientist Wants to Gene-Hack Hybrid Humans to Survive Mars

By Dan Robitzski

Boeing just sent NASA its proposal for a crewed lunar lander that could ferry astronauts to the Moon by 2024 via NASA's planned "Lunar Gateway."

Here’s How Boeing is Planning to Get Astronauts to the Moon

By Victor Tangermann

The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation announced the country's first ever plans to send astronauts to the surface of Mars.

China Unveils Plan to Send Astronauts to Mars

By Victor Tangermann

Hollywood legend James Dean will rise from the dead to make a computer-generated appearance in in an upcoming film, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Hollywood Legend James Dean to be Reconstructed in CGI for Movie

By Victor Tangermann

Scientists use an electron microscopy science technique called 4D-STEM to image the molecular structure of materials with the beautiful result of art.

Science & Energy

These Photos Make Molecular Structures Look Like Psychedelic Art

By Kristin Houser

The self-driving Uber that struck and killed an Arizona woman in March 2018 wasn't programmed to know that people could jaywalk.

Self-Driving Vehicles

Self-Driving Uber That Killed Woman Didn’t Know Jaywalkers Exist

By Kristin Houser

China is actively selling killer drones to the Middle East, and one company is working to market its fully-autonomous robots.

China Is Selling Autonomous Killer Drones to the Middle East

By Dan Robitzski

Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced on Twitter that the electric company's long-awaited pickup truck, or "cybertruck," will be unveiled on November 21.

Elon Musk Confirms Tesla “Cybertruck” Debut Date

By Victor Tangermann

NVIDIA researchers have created a new AI that needs one full body photo of a person to make them look like they’re dancing.

Artificial Intelligence

New AI Can Make a Vid of You Dancing Like a Pro From a Single Pic

By Kristin Houser

Jaguar is working on futuristic new tech that could turn interior panels of your next car into smart, color-changing, and interactive screens.

Advanced Transport

Jaguar Wants to Coat the Interior of Land Rovers With OLED Screens

By Victor Tangermann

A white supremacist planned to blow up a synagogue, but the bombs he got from undercover FBI agents he met through Facebook were inert.

FBI Meets Would-Be Bomber on Facebook, Gives Him Fake Explosives

By Kristin Houser

In a Monday tweet, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk explained that Starship spaceports will need to be 20 miles offshore because of noise.

Elon Musk: Noisy Starship Spaceports Will Be 20 Miles Offshore

By Victor Tangermann

On Monday, Boeing's CST-100 Starliner flew for the first time as part of a launch abort test — and during the test, one of its parachutes didn't deploy.

Boeing Starliner’s Parachute Fails to Deploy During First Flight

By Kristin Houser

An alien-themed brothel in Nevada called Alien Cathouse just bought an AI sex robot to cater to clients with unusual fetishes.

An Alien-Themed Brothel Just Bought a Sex Robot

By Dan Robitzski

We couldn't help but admire this big, fully functional, hammer-sized Bluetooth AirPod built by handy Redditor Master_Aar17. Seriously, just look at it.

Robots and Machines

Behold This Gigantic, Fully Functional AirPod

By Jon Christian

T-Mobile's parent comapny, Deutsche Telekom, is suing the insurance company Lemonade for using the color magenta in its advertisements.

T-Mobile Says It Has Legal Rights to That Obnoxious Pink Color

By Dan Robitzski

More than 11,000 scientists in 153 nations have endorsed a newly published statement on climate change — and it does not contain much good news.

11K Scientists: Please Panic, Climate Change Will Kill Us All

By Kristin Houser

Instead of crafting a complex code to share mathematical and scientific knowledge with aliens, the best way to communicate might be using our lanuages.

Science & Energy

To Chat With Aliens, We Should Beam an Encyclopedia to Space

By Dan Robitzski

Microsoft is pivoting its Bing search engine to focus on businesses, claiming it'll make it easier for employees to navigate companies' intranets.

Microsoft Is Giving Up On Regular People Ever Using Bing

By Kristin Houser

The U.S. Air Force is trying to find out if we could collect solar power in space and beam it down to Earth with the help of Northrop Grumman..

The Air Force Is Trying to Beam Solar Power Down to Earth

By Victor Tangermann

Now, Motherboard reports, MIT students are calling for the termination of a third academic associated with Epstein — this one even closer to the financier.

Students Demand MIT Fire Prof Who Visited Epstein in Prison

By Jon Christian

NASA just funded a study to determine the feasibility of a Pluto orbiter, which would provide a much closer look at the dwarf planet than New Horizons did.

Science & Energy

NASA Is Seriously Considering a Pluto Orbiter

By Victor Tangermann

In a new paper, cosmologists argue that the shape of the universe is more like an inflating balloon than a flat sheet of paper.

Science & Energy

The Universe May Loop Around Like an Old Video Game

By Victor Tangermann

An online calculator shows what would happen if a black hole gulped down the Earth or any other objects floating around in space.

Science & Energy

Here’s What Would Happen if Earth Collided With a Black Hole

By Dan Robitzski

Inaccurate police breathalyzers are putting innocent drivers behind bars and guilty ones back on the road, according to a new investigation.

Robots and Machines

Investigation Finds Breathalyzers Are Regularly Inaccurate

By Kristin Houser

A peer-reviewed academic journal has made the bizarre choice to publish a paper that says women are inherently worse at physics despite knowing it's flawed.

Paper in Peer-Reviewed Journal Claims Women Are Bad at Physics

By Dan Robitzski

Switching to a four-day workweek boosted productivity by nearly 40 percent at Microsoft Japan, a sign that the change could benefit employers and employees.

Microsoft Japan Tried a Four-Day Workweek. Productivity Spiked.

By Kristin Houser

While the U.S. doesn't have a social credit score system like China, several shadowy companies are using private data to do something similar in the U.S.

Science & Energy

Here’s How to Check Your Totalitarian “Social Credit Score”

By Dan Robitzski

By connecting satellites with ultra-thin tethers, engineers could safely steer them back to Earth with a space propulsion system, no fuel required.

The US Is Testing a Space Propulsion System That Doesn’t Use Fuel

By Dan Robitzski

This startup's plan is to send swarms of smart robots to the surface of a distant moon and planets to extract resources including water ice and minerals.

Meet the Startup Building Robot Swarms to Mine Ice on the Moon

By Victor Tangermann

Russian researchers have created an AI that analyzes electroencephalography data and draws what a person is looking at in real time.

This AI Decodes Your Brainwaves and Draws What You’re Looking at

By Kristin Houser

Russian startup Promobot says it can create robot clones of any person, from Michael Jordan to William Shakespeare to you.

A Russian Startup Is Selling Robot Clones of Real People

By Kristin Houser

Hundreds of schools in the U.S. have traded in the physical hall pass for an app called e-Hallpass — and It has some parents furious.

Schools Are Using an App to Track Students While They Pee

By Kristin Houser

Yet another study has calculated the Hubble Constant and come to a different conclusion, raising more questions about the nature of our universe.

Scientists: Something About the Universe Doesn’t Look Right

By Kristin Houser

China has a new plan to send robotic vehilces to the Moon and bring back lunar samples of rocks. It'll be the first lunar retrieval mission since 1976.

China Is Going to the Moon, Coming Back With Moon Rocks

By Dan Robitzski

Astronomers claim to have spotted a tiny black hole that's only 20 kilometers across. That's tiny.

Astronomers Spot Black Hole the Size of Manhattan

By Victor Tangermann

ACLU had filed a lawsuit against the FBI, DOJ, and DEA for information on their use of surveillance technology, such as facial recognition software.

ACLU Sues FBI For “Dystopian Surveillance Technology” Info

By Kristin Houser

The Keystone Pipeline just had a spill of over 380,000 gallons of crude oil into North Dakota wetlands, the latest in a line of catastrophic oil spills.

The US Said This Pipeline Would Have “No Impact.” Now It’s Leaking Crude Oil.

By Dan Robitzski

Belgium-based machine learning researcher and educator Xander Steenbrugge has developed a neural network AI that can turn music into trippy animations.

Artificial Intelligence

Watch an AI Turn Music Into a Brain-Melting Visualization

By Victor Tangermann

Japan has unveiled a wooden car two years in the making, but while the vehicle looks cool, it seems far from road ready at this time.

Advanced Transport

Japan Just Unveiled a Supercar Made out of Wood

By Kristin Houser

Elon Musk donated a million dollars to a campaign to plant trees. The next day, Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke pledged a million and one.

Rival CEO Literally One-Ups Elon Musk’s Million-Tree Donation

By Kristin Houser

A physicist created a calculator that uses mathematical models to determine the likelihood that humanity would survive a vampire attack.

A Physicist Calculated Our Chances of Surviving a Vampire Attack

By Kristin Houser

A group of researchers are eager to get back to exploring the far reaches of the universe and send a probe on a NASA mission into interstellar space.

Science & Energy

It’s Official: NASA Is Considering an Interstellar Mission

By Victor Tangermann

Boeing admitted today that dozens of its third-generation 737 NG ("Next Generation") planes have been grounded by a number of airlines.

Advanced Transport

Dozens of Boeing 737 Jets Grounded Because of “Cracks”

By Victor Tangermann

After denying reports of a system malware infection Tuesday, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) admitted that its plants had been hacked.

Someone Hacked India’s Nuclear Power Plants

By Victor Tangermann

Astronauts on the International Space Station played a quick game of low-gravity baseball in orbit to promote the World Series.

International Space Station

Watch Astronauts Play Baseball on the International Space Station

By Dan Robitzski

MIT researchers have created a fleet of robot cubes that can move autonomously, climbing, spinning, and even jumping to form shapes.

Watch MIT’s Robot Cubes Self-Assemble Into Structures

By Kristin Houser