Some three decades ago, a group of pioneering computer scientists—Gordon Bell, John Hennessy, Ed Lazowska, Raj Reddy, Andy Van Dam, and sometimes a few others—began a tradition of placing bets against each other. This week, these long-time friends and competitors gathered virtually at an event held by the Computer History Museum in honor of Reddy being named […]
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We’ll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here’s what we have so far (send us your events!): RoboCup 2021 – June 22-28, 2021 – [Online Event] RSS 2021 – July 12-16, 2021 – [Online Event] […]
Edmon de Haro Ten years ago, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen proclaimed that software was eating the world. Today, the hottest features in the latest phones are software updates or AI improvements, not faster chips or new form factors. Technology is becoming more mundane, and ultimately, invisible. This probably doesn’t bother you. But even as technologies […]
For years, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been shuffling its way towards some semblance of regulation of the enormous number of drones now in the hands of recreational pilots in the United States. The fact that anyone can run out and buy a cheap drone at a nearby store, charge the battery, and […]
It’s well known that microplastics have infiltrated much of the world’s oceans, where these persistent pieces of garbage threaten the livelihood of marine life. But truly quantifying the extent of this problem globally remains a challenge. Now, a pair of researchers are proposing a novel approach to tracking these minute scraps of plastic in the […]
The white sailboat outside of Michelin Group’s Swiss office doesn’t have a sail at all. Instead, it has a wing. The puffy, inflatable structure towers over the vessel, resembling an enormous meringue with a spine of stiff peaks. At sea, it cuts through the wind like an airplane wing, sending the sailboat flying across the […]
For years now, tech professionals reportedly have been trading the San Francisco Bay Area for more inviting places to live. These reports, at least on a broad scale, didn’t ring particularly true until the pandemic, belied by the ever-increasing Silicon Valley traffic and tight housing market. But now with vast numbers of tech professionals working […]
Illustration by Harry Campbell Recently, my electricity provider started offering email notifications when the price of electricity rises above a preset threshold. As amply demonstrated during February’s cold-snap-induced grid collapse in Texas, the spot price of electricity can rise precipitously when demand exceeds supply, which in that case led to some unlucky folks receiving bills […]
This application note will show you how to speed up your development cycle and show you how to emulate different worldwide charging standards effectively with minimal equipment.
In a web media conference this week, Cadillac unveiled their electric SUV for the 2023 model year. The Lyriq, company executives said, would serve as the Detroit carmaker’s first production proof in an ambitious plan: Cadillac, they said, would eliminate internal combustion-engine cars entirely from their lineup by 2030. “The time is absolutely right to make this pivot,” said […]