Saudi Arabia may be famous for medieval barbarism and oil, but the kingdom is rebranding as a futuristic ecotopia. The latest showcase of this unlikely vision is The Line, a mirrored city that’s 500m tall, 200m wide, and 170km long. The metropolis will purportedly have a population of 1.5 million people by 2045. The project is projected to cost up to $1 trillion. Greetings, humanoids Subscribe to our newsletter now for a weekly recap of our favorite AI stories in your inbox. Future residents are promised “a civilizational revolution” with no cars, roads, or emissions.
This week Dott unveiled an experiment to send bad escooter riders back to school. In an industry-first pilot in Rome and Milan, Dott is launching a scheme where bad riders who repeatedly park escooters badly (outside a permitted area or violating the Highway Code) are sent to a driving course. Specifically, second-time offenders receive a fine from Dott and a guide to parking and local rules. A third violation invites them to attend “a compulsory and free driving course in Autumn 2022.” Hi there, EV nerd! Subscribe now for a weekly recap of our favorite mobility stories
For the first time ever since going public in 2007, Meta (aka Facebook) reported a decline in quarterly revenue year over year. The company’s revenue was $28.82 billion — a 1% decrease from $29.07 billion in the second quarter of 2021. What’s worse, it forecasts that growth in the third quarter could fall even more, in the range of $26-28.5 billion. Who’s to blame? Meta attributes this to “the continuation of the weak advertising demand environment” they experienced throughout the second quarter, which they believe “is being driven by the broader macroeconomic uncertainty.
If you think dead spider robots are something straight out of a horror movie (or your worst nightmares), I have some news for you. Mechanical engineers from Rice University have actually turned spider cadavers into what they call “necrobots,” able to function as mechanical grippers. What’s “necrobotics?” The use of animal characteristics or components to create robotic systems isn’t a novelty in research. Greetings, humanoids Subscribe to our newsletter now for a weekly recap of our favorite AI stories in your inbox. Think of bio-inspired and biohybrid robots.
The chance of someone being killed by space junk falling from the sky may seem ridiculously tiny. After all, nobody has yet died from such an accident, though there have been instances of injury and damage to property. But given that we are launching an increasing number of satellites, rockets, and probes into space, do we need to start taking the risk more seriously? A new study, published in Nature Astronomy, has estimated the chance of causalities from falling rocket parts over the next ten years. Every minute of every day, debris rains down on us from space – a hazard we are almost completely unaware of.
In the last few years, Egypt’s startup ecosystem has become one of the most vibrant on the continent, presenting rapid growth potential for the near future. According to a recent report by Startup Genome, Cairo, the country’s bustling capital, marked an overall increase of 60% in VC funding rounds over the past five years, and in 2021, saw a 156% increase in total VC funding rounds compared to 2020. Walking on the streets of Cairo, it’s now common to see colorful billboards bearing the distinct logo of Fawry, an e-payments platform which has gained funding big enough to attain unicorn status.
Between 2000 and 2018, the number of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) manufactured was multiplied by 80. In 2018, 66% of them were used in electric vehicles (EVs). The planned development of electric mobility will increase demand for batteries, with the International Energy Agency estimating that between 2019 and 2030, battery demand will grow 17-fold. This situation raises many questions related to the materials used to manufacture these batteries: what resources are involved? What are the environmental impacts of extracting them? Can they be recycled? When looking into the materials in the LIBs that are currently used in the vast majority of EVs, the first thing to know is that there are multiple kinds of battery technology.
We are currently at the peak of the holiday season, but instead of drinking cocktails on the beach, hiking the mountains ,and enjoying what life has to offer, a surprising number of people are reluctant to take time out from work. Recent research shows one in five people in Ireland do not take their full annual leave entitlement. And in the UK, two in five workers have taken less leave in recent years as a result of the pandemic. It is important to take time out from work in order to fully live our lives, but there are several issues that can discourage us from taking annual leave.
Earlier this month, Ukraine launched a campaign to assemble the world’s first “Army of Drones.” It called on the international community to donate funds towards new drones or to “dronate” their own recreational and commercial drones. That’s because Ukraine’s military doesn’t have an official drone unit, so drones supplied and funded globally will play a critical part in protecting the country against Russian occupation. The initiative is facilitated by President Zelensky’s global fundraising initiative, UNITED24, together with the General Staff of the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Digital Transformation. How are drones used in warfare?
