List of All Articles with Tag 'tec'

Hours before Tesla Inc. and Ford Motor Co. announced their surprise charging partnership, Ford’s chief executive officer offered

NEW YORK Short sellers in shares of Nvidia Corp. were down $4.1 billion in mark-to-market losses over the

Japan is aiming to become the first country in the world to beam solar energy from space back to Earth to generate electricity at scale. A public-private partnership led by Japanese space agency JAXA will see the first satellite transmitters set up by 2025, according to local reports, The satellites will convert solar power into microwaves and send them to ground-based receiving stations, which then convert it into electrical energy. “If we can demonstrate our technology ahead of the rest of the world, it will also be a bargaining tool for space development with other countries,” Kyoto University professor Naoki Shinohara told Nikkei. The concept, which was first theorised in 1968, has several advantages over terrestrial solar power setups, notably being able to harvest solar energy for much longer, unhindered by the Sun’s typical cycle. Microwaves are capable of passing through clouds, so the technology is also able to operate in adverse weather conditions. Japan has already achieved several firsts in this field, having been the first to transmit power via microwaves in space in the 1980s. In 2015, JAXA scientists followed this up with another breakthrough that saw 1.8 kilowatts of power beamed down to an Earth-based receiver – roughly enough to power an electrical kettle. Several other countries and regions are also working on the technology, with the European Space Agency unveiling a plan last year to test the viability of space-based solar power. The Solaris program aims to make Europe a global leader in this untapped energy resource, with the hope of setting up a development program in 2025. More research still needs to be done before it becomes feasible at a significant scale, though recent advances in high-efficiency solar cells, wireless power transmission and robotic in-orbit assembly mean that China and the US are also working on ways to tap the Sun’s energy from space. Among the concerns surrounding the technology are the health impacts of low-power microwaves on humans, animals and plants. “These are the kind of technical questions that Solaris will look into, to explore further the feasibility of the concept,” Sanjay Vijendran, ESA’s lead for the Solaris proposal, said last year. “As an added plus, any breakthroughs achieved in these areas will be valuable in their own right, applicable to many other spaceflight endeavours.” Read More Scientists break world record for solar power window material Huge ‘plume’ seen coming out of nearby moon that could support alien life Elon Musk meets Chinese foreign minister on first visit for three years Mitigating ‘extinction’ from AI should be ‘global priority’, experts say

By Supantha Mukherjee STOCKHOLM Top artificial intelligence executives including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Tuesday joined experts and

Some of the biggest names in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) have called for global leaders to work towards mitigating the risk of “extinction” from the technology. In a short statement, which did not clarify what they think may become extinct, business and academic leaders said the risks from AI should be treated with the same urgency as pandemics or nuclear war. “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” they said. The statement was organised by the Centre for AI Safety, a San Francisco-based non-profit which aims “to reduce societal-scale risks from AI”. It said the use of AI in warfare could be “extremely harmful” as it could be used to develop new chemical weapons and enhance aerial combat. The letter was signed by some of the biggest names in the field, including Geoffrey Hinton, who is sometimes nicknamed the “Godfather of AI”. The signatories also include Sam Altman and Ilya Sutskever, the chief executive and co-founder respectively of ChatGPT-developer OpenAI. The list also included dozens of academics, senior bosses at companies like Google DeepMind, the co-founder of Skype, and the founders of AI company Anthropic. AI is now in the global consciousness after several firms released new tools allowing users to generate text, images and even computer code by just asking for what they want. Experts say the technology could take over jobs from humans – but this statement warns of an even deeper concern. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live

Scientists and tech industry leaders have issued a new warning about the perils that artificial intelligence poses to humankind

Dozens of AI industry leaders, academics and even some celebrities on Tuesday called for reducing the risk of global annihilation due to artificial intelligence, arguing in a brief statement that the threat of an AI extinction event should be a top global priority.

ROME Italy's government plans to set up an investment fund backed by state lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti

Elizabeth Holmes is set to report to prison on Tuesday, capping off a stunning downfall for the disgraced founder of failed blood testing startup Theranos.

Scientists have achieved a new world record for a next-generation solar cell, which holds the promise for novel applications like building-integrated and window solar panels. The breakthrough follows two years of research from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University into organic solar cells (OSCs), which until now have been too inefficient and costly to be used widely in practical applications. The research team invented a new technique to boost the stability of OSCs, achieving a power-conversion efficiency of 19.3 per cent. “The new finding will make OSC research an exciting field, and this will likely create tremendous opportunities in applications like portable electronics and building-integrated photovoltaics,” said Li Gang, a professor of energy conversion technology at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. “This is a very encouraging result for the long-standing research on OSCs that I have conducted over the past two decades. We have already achieved better OSC efficiency and this will subsequently help accelerate the applications of solar energy.” Professor Li and his team believe an efficiency rate above 20 per cent is now achievable using their new technique. The research is detailed in a study, titled ‘19.3% Binary Organic Solar Cell and Low Non-Radiative Recombination Enabled by Non-Monotonic Intermediate State Transition’, published in the scientific journal Nature Communications. The 19.3 per cent efficiency record is still a long way off other solar cell technologies, with researchers passing the 30 per cent barrier last year with a tandem design that used the so-called “miracle material” perovskite. OSCs are more lightweight and flexible than traditional silicon-based solar panels, as they consist of thin layers of organic semiconducting materials. The materials used are more environmentally friendly and 1,000-times thinner than silicon solar cells, meaning they have the potential to be vastly cheaper. They are also semi-transparent, allowing them to be used not just within building materials, but also on windows. Dozens of startups are already working on novel applications for harvesting solar energy, such as London-based Filia, which integrates solar technology into blackout blinds. California-based Ubiquitous Energy raised more than $30 million last year to push forward its vision of turning skyscrapers into “vertical solar farms” through the development of windows capable of converting sunlight into electricity. The firm aims to begin production at some point next year following further research and development. Read More Electric car range set to double with first production of breakthrough battery Solar panel efficiency to increase 50% with first production of ‘miracle’ tandem cells Solar panel efficiency to increase 50% with first ‘miracle’ tandem cells Elon Musk’s private jet lands in China for billionaire’s first visit in three years WhatsApp set to add major features including a new username system

A university professor who worked on US government programmes relating to UFOs has said he believes that "aliens are 100 per cent living among us". Dr Garry Nolan of Stanford University School of Medicine spoke about “advanced forms of intelligence” during a recent conference called The Pentagon, Extraterrestrial Intelligence and Crashed UFOs. He said: "I think it's an advanced form of intelligence that using some kind of intermediaries. It's not that they walk among us wearing a skin suit. You're going to put something there that I think of as an intelligence test." Nolan went on to say: "They're showing up and saying who amongst you are intelligent enough to realize what it is you're looking at. 'Can you see what's in front of you for what it really is? Can you see the anomalous data point?" Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter He then spoke his own experiences of people reverse engineering ‘downed crafts', while adding that he believes aliens will not come to Earth to harm humans. "100%" Aliens Have Already Arrived -Dr. Garry Nolan | SALT iConnections New York www.youtube.com "A tiny piece of knowledge from that could revolutionize what we're doing,” Nolan stated. "I'm not worried about them coming and raiding us or taking our women and children. That's not my concern. My concern is how do we use it,” he went on to say. Meanwhile, it was recently claimed that Logan Paul could be the most important figure in the UFO-hunting community. Documentary filmmaker James Fox has spoken about a piece of footage that was rumoured to have been uncovered by UFO specialist Chuck Clark around 30 years ago. The footage is thought to have been recorded by two men in the Nevada desert and has been the focus of much speculation in the community of UFO hunters. While the clip has never been widely shared and has become the stuff of urban legend, Fox has revealed that Paul could be the key to the video being shared with the public in the future. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

By Munsif Vengattil NEW DELHI India will start a pilot project this week to establish itself as an