The City of New York is grappling with a problem — fire. Specifically, escooter and ebike lithium-ion batteries catch fire and sometimes explode. And there’s no sign of it ending anytime soon. Earlier this year, I wrote an introductory article detailing the rate of lithium-ion battery fires. Today I want to look at New York as a cautionary tale in the struggle of dealing with battery fires as ebikes (and, to a lesser extent, escooters) become mainstream. I’ll follow up with a third article tomorrow, exploring potential technological solutions to prevent battery fires. What causes battery fires?
A new “water map” of Mars could offer fresh clues about the planet’s past — and potential landing spots for the future. Researchers from the European Space Agency (ESA) spent a decade developing the map from data collected by two Mars orbiters. They found hundreds of thousands of areas containing aqueous mineral deposits, which are created though interactions between rock and water. Greetings, humanoids Subscribe to our newsletter now for a weekly recap of our favorite AI stories in your inbox. As the minerals still contain water molecules, they could show locations where we can extract water for human bases on the planet.
Vivek Wadhwa and Mauritz Kop recently penned an op-ed urging governments around the world to get ahead of the threat posed by the emerging technology known as quantum computing. They even went so far as to title their article “Why Quantum Computing is Even More Dangerous Than Artificial Intelligence.” Up front: This one gets a very respectful hard-disagree from me. While I do believe that quantum computing does pose an existential threat to humanity, my reasons differ wildly from those proposed by Wadhwa and Kop. Point Wadhwa and Kop open their article with a description of AI’s failures, potential misuse, and how the media’s narrative has exacerbated the danger of AI before it settles on a powerful lead:
We all know the drill. During the pandemic, offices shut-down, employees worked from home… and companies discovered, it wasn’t all bad. Now, with half of workers wanting to continue the work from home life and the other half running back to the office with open arms, companies are weighing the potential benefits of remote, hybrid, and flexible work arrangements. In the wake of the ‘Great Resignation,’ some say that offering remote and hybrid work options can even help create a more equitable work environment by leveling the playing field, allowing for more flexibility, and limiting the microaggressions people of color often have to confront in the workplace.
Gen Xers and boomers will remember the musical powerhouse that was Janet Jackson in the late 1980s. But now her music has been found to have a new power — it can crash laptops. This week Microsoft chief software engineer Raymond Chen shared the story of what happens when older Windows XP laptops play the music video for Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation.” Specifically, Chen recalls a colleague’s tale from Windows XP product support. An unnamed major computer manufacturer discovered that playing the video would crash certain models of laptops. Greetings, tech nerd! Are you into gadgets? And apps? And other cool tech stuff? Then this weekly newsletter is for you.
Europe has some of the most progressive, human-centric artificial intelligence governance policies in the world. Compared to the heavy-handed government oversight in China or the Wild West-style anything goes approach in the US, the EU’s strategy is designed to stoke academic and corporate innovation while also protecting private citizens from harm and overreach. But that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. The 2018 initiative In 2018, the European Commission began its European AI Alliance initiative. The alliance exists so that various stakeholders can weigh-in and be heard as the EU considers its ongoing policies governing the development and deployment of AI technologies.
Late last week, the City ofNew York announced a revolutionary way to curb the problem of speeding using speed limiters. It’s not only a first for the city, but a massive upgrade on efforts rolled out this year in Europe. As part of a new six-month pilot program, 50 city fleet vehicles are fitted with active intelligent speed assistance (ISA), which restricts a vehicle’s maximum speed, preventing it from exceeding local speed limits. If successful, the City of New York will extend the initiative across the City’s entire 30,000 vehicle fleet, which includes fire engines, police cars, sanitation trucks, street pavers, and passenger vehicles, spread across 60 agencies.
There’s nothing quite so dramatic and inspirational as a scientific breakthrough. But what happens when different groups of scientists can’t seem to agree on the science? DeepMind, an Alphabet research company based in London, published a fascinating research paper last year wherein it claimed to have solved the huge challenge of “simulating matter on the quantum scale with AI.” Now, nearly eight months later, a group of academic researchers from Russia and South Korea may have uncovered a problem with the original research that places the paper’s entire conclusion in doubt. The implications for this cutting-edge research could be huge, if the paper’s conclusions are true.
Picture it. Using an app, you order a new mobile phone on Amazon or a burger from your favorite restaurant. A mere 20 minutes later, you get an alert on your phone and head out to the backyard to see a drone descending from the sky holding your package. Your package gently drops to the ground, and the drone flies off. And it’s being led by retail behemoths Amazon, Walmart, and a slew of food delivery companies. I spoke to industry insiders to get the state of play and see an industry evolving from nascent to the mainstream, but for regulatory restrictions.
