Items tagged with Elon-Musk
SpaceX’s Starlink program has been growing exponentially in the past year, adding new customers and sending more satellites to space. Whether or not you think this is a good thing, it is impressive, nonetheless. Now, the founder and face of SpaceX, Elon Musk, has announced that Starlink will be exiting its beta phase next month. Following Elon Musk’s tweet about good feedback on Tesla’s self-driving functionality, Twitter user Overshield asked the space-mogul when Starlink would be exiting its beta. Musk wrote a curt reply, only stating “next month.” While those ten characters may not seem like much, it effectively announces a new era for Starlink, which begins in...
Read more...
As we watch the Epic Games versus Apple fight continue from the sidelines, a new contender has entered the ring, it seems. Yesterday, billionaire and space mogul Elon Musk surprisingly sided with Epic Games on App Store fees on Twitter. Nearly a year ago, Apple kicked Fortnite off the App Store after Epic Games moved to circumvent Apple’s fees through a new storefront within the battle royale game. Google quickly followed suit after Epic Games tried to pull the same stunt on the Play Store with little success. Since then, there has been a back-and-forth legal battle both in and out of court between Epic Games, Apple, and Google, who all have quite a bit of funding to throw at the fight....
Read more...
SpaceX's Starlink opened preorders for satellite internet services earlier this year, largely covering the northern hemisphere's higher latitudes. Since then, Elon Musk's company has continued to expand its services to more people around the world. Now, it is believed that the satellites will be able to provide continuous global coverage come September, provided regulatory approvals are granted. On Tuesday, Starlink's president Gwynne Shotwel spoke at a Macquarie Group virtual technology conference, explaining that the company has deployed roughly 1,800 satellites so far. She then stated that "once all those satellites reach their operational orbit, we will have continuous global coverage, so...
Read more...
China is one of the largest cryptocurrency mining countries in the world, in part due to its sheer population, cheap electricity, and easy access to electronics. This year, Bitcoin and other large cryptocurrencies took off alongside new coins like Chia, which saw immense popularity in China. Now, the Chinese government has cracked down on cryptos overall, and miners are pulling out of the country, leading to a sharp price slump across the board. Will this trend continue, or will cryptocurrencies recover in traditional fashion? Last Friday, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He announced a crackdown on Bitcoin mining and trading to “fend off financial risks.” This announcement came just...
Read more...
It has been a tumultuous week for cryptocurrencies as many of the major coins have taken a nosedive off a cliff, such as Bitcoin sitting at $34,000 at the time of writing. As this is happening, many crypto exchanges, like Binance and Coinbase, are feeling the pressure and may be struggling for it. Citing issues like network congestion and partial outages, these companies temporarily paused transactions, either by choice or involuntarily but have now restored some service. Earlier this morning, Coinbase faced “intermittent downtime” on its platforms, tweeting that some customers were “experiencing some issues with logging in, seeing their balances, and trading.” The initial...
Read more...
In February, we reported that Tesla went in on Bitcoin, investing $1.5 billion and laying the groundwork to accept payments using the cryptocurrency. Since then, Bitcoin is up over $13,000, which has earned Elon Musk’s company in the neighborhood of $480 million. Now, Tesla intends to increase its amassed wealth by allowing new Tesla purchases to be completed using Bitcoin. In a brief series of Tweets overnight, Musk announced that Tesla is now accepting Bitcoin payments within the US. Later this year, the feature will roll out worldwide so anyone can use their cryptocurrency wallet to make a Tesla purchase. As one astute Twitter user amusingly pointed out, you can now...
Read more...
Early in January, JP Morgan predicted Bitcoin's future price could surge upwards to $146K a coin with a market cap of around $2.6 trillion, which would rival gold as an alternative form of investment. Of course, this theory hinged on the speculation that volatility would decrease and that private companies would latch onto the coin and propel it to those impressive numbers. Barring the volatility which remains to be seen, we may be witnessing the first steps in the skyrocket of Bitcoin, as Tesla reported that it invested $1.5 billion into the cryptocurrency. Over the past few weeks, Tesla fans and customers have requested that Elon Musk accept Bitcoin payments for vehicle purchases....
Read more...
Since the first launch in 2019, the Starlink satellite network has steadily been growing. Once it had enough satellites in Earth orbit, SpaceX introduced the beta program, which has grown immensely as well. Now, in an FCC filing to become a telecommunications carrier, Elon Musk’s company disclosed that it has 10,000 users in the United States and abroad, marking a significant stepping stone in going big with Starlink. The filing explains that “Starlink’s performance is not theoretical or experimental,” as it has “successfully demonstrated it can surpass the Commission’s 'Above Baseline' and 'Low Latency' performance tiers.” This means that the service...
Read more...
SpaceX’s StarLink Internet Beta Program began to go out to customers around October 28th, and people are starting to show off its current capabilities. Some reddit users on the Starlink subreddit have displayed pictures of their StarLink terminal and some SpeedTest information for the masses. The data being reported wholly lives up to Elon Musk’s promises and all the hype surrounding the program, and improvements are still to come. It appears that SpaceX has sent out beta invites over the entire week to test the StarLink program. Reddit user /u/FourthEchelon19 posted a picture of his Starlink terminal from out in Washington state. They reported typical speeds of around 134Mbps download...
Read more...
We can expect one small step for man and one giant leap for SpaceX and their SN8 Starship in approximately a week from now. Yesterday, Elon Musk tweeted that the SN8 Starship is being prepared for static fire tests and a flight to 60,000 feet and back. Back in August, we reported on SpaceX doing 150-meter hops with the SN5 Starship. More recently, the SN6 did a 150-meter hop test as well. These tests were powered by the SpaceX Raptor engine, which should also be used in the upcoming SN8 test. However, both previous prototypes looked more like shiny Pringles cans with a rocket motor than a proper rocket ship. With the previous tests, SpaceX’s goal was to see if the Starship's stainless-steel...
Read more...
Elon Musk’s brain-machine interface company, Neuralink, had a summer progress update livestream yesterday, August 28th. In this stream, Musk got to go hog-wild, quite literally, showcasing test subject pigs who had the Neuralink brain implant installed, as well as some of the tech involved. Since the Neuralink update last summer, quite a few things have changed. Most notable of these changes is the form factor of the device. Previously, the Neuralink device sat behind the ear with wires going up into the brain. Now, the device sits nearly on top of the head, replacing a small skull piece. Then, the wires go a few centimeters into the brain from the device. The Neuralink itself is slightly...
Read more...
For a little while now, Elon Musk’s side project, Neuralink, has made the news rounds. Now, we may finally get to see something tangible during a webcast coming up on Friday. Founded in 2017, the Neuralink Corporation is Elon Musk’s business for creating a brain-machine interface. Over time, bits of information have slowly started to trickle out. On August 1st of this year, information was released pertaining to the capabilities of the Neuralink project. When someone on Twitter asked Elon Musk about listening to music through Neuralink, he replied with a simple “yes.” When asked about other features, Musk confirmed things such as possibly controlling hormone levels,...
Read more...
Say what you want about Elon Musk, but the dude has a sense of humor. Either that, or Musk knows something about some sort of flammable C.H.U.D. creatures thanks to the folks at The Boring Company. Musk tweeted that The Boring Company flamethrower is real and that it is for sale. You can order one up while supplies lasts for $500 plus tax via The Boring Company website. If you can’t sell your significant other on the need to drop $500 on a flamethrower (it would be the best way ever to light the BBQ this summer), you will have the chance to play with one virtually. Gearbox Software CEO Randy Pitchford tweeted at Elon Musk that he wanted to put the flamethrower into the next Borderlands...
Read more...
Tesla went official with its new Semi at a special event last night. We had heard rumors of the battery-powered big rig back in August, and at the time it was tipped to have a rather short 300 mile driving range per charge. As it turns out the driving range for the Tesla Semi (that is the official name of the vehicle) is much better at 500 miles per charge. The Semi is obviously much bigger than Tesla's passenger cars, but it does seem to be lower to the ground than many of the big rigs that plow through the highways each day. Tesla CEO Elon Musk says that the Semi is "designed like a bullet" and it certainly looks very aerodynamic. Most of the same safety and driver assistance tech that the...
Read more...
Tesla is shifting focus always from being primarily an auto manufacturer to a company that is all about sustainable energy (the company recently dropped the “Motors” from its name). Elon Musk detailed his vision for the company in what he dubs “Master Plan, Part Deux” in a blog posting. Musk’s original master plan was revealed in August 2006, and the company has met all of those goals, which include 1) creating an expensive low-volume car, 2) using the funds from that vehicle to produce a medium volume car at a lower starting price, 3) create a high-volume affordable car for the masses and 4) introduce products that take advantage of sustainable energy. Tesla hit all of the points (for the most...
Read more...
Elon Musk is going to need a bigger rocket hangar. SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket stuck its second at-sea drone ship landing early this morning after launching at 1:21am EST. This the third time the company has recovered the vehicle post-launch, and the second time the rocket has landed intact on the drone ship. The primary mission was to send a Japanese JCSAT-14 communications satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit high above the Earth and SpaceX delivered as promised. Like every good space nerd I stayed up until 1:21am in order to watch the rocket launch (ok, I watched it when I woke up in the morning, but who is counting). SpaceX said on Monday that a successful...
Read more...
Still on a euphoric high after its successful powered landing of a Falcon 9 rocket last month, SpaceX is looking to achieve the feat again. However, instead of attempting a relatively “easy” landing on solid ground, SpaceX is once again aiming for the fences and will attempt another landing on a floating barge at sea. If you recall, SpaceX’s last two attempts to land its Falcon 9 at sea resulted into spectacular fireballs. In both instances, the Falcon 9 made it to the platform, but failed to land upright and intact. However, SpaceX hopes that the third time will be a charm when a Falcon 9 rocket blasts off from Vandenberg Air Force Base on January 17th. After the Falcon 9 delivers a NASA satellite...
Read more...
Elon Musk isn’t just content with revolutionizing the electric vehicle market; he also has a hand in revolutionizing rockets and cargo deliveries to the International Space Station (ISS) with SpaceX, and even has a [smaller] hand in the solar industry with SolarCity. Musk is now branching out into the home energy market leveraging technology that we’ve seen previously with Tesla Motors and SolarCity. Tesla Energy encompasses new battery systems that are being targeted at both home users and businesses, as we have previously discussed. The first system, the lithium-ion-powered Powerwall, has the most relevance to HotHardware readers. It is available in 7 kWh ($3,000) and 10 kWh ($3,500) versions...
Read more...
One of the highlights of today’s opening keynote at the NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference in San Jose (GTC) was NVIDIA CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang’s invited special guest, Tesla CEO, Elon Musk and the “fireside chat” the two were scheduled to hold. Frankly, it was a bit shorter than expected, but when two visionaries take the stage, time does tend to fly, figuratively and literally. There’s no question, Jen-Hsun Huang is a visionary when it comes to visual computing, but Musk, Musk thinks way outside the box on a lot of things – from Electric Vehicles, to Hyperloop supersonic transport, to autonomous cars that are so reliable, they're safer on the road than humans. Think about it....
Read more...
If there's one man who understands all the potential of artificial intelligence, it's Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk. You might recall that this past fall, we wrote about one of Musk's comments regarding how future AI developments could lead us to "[summon] the demon". Quite simply, we don't want a "Skynet" to happen. In the 80s, the mere thought of that would have sounded ridiculous, but today? Things have certainly changed.Elon Musk stares at a robot at Tesla'a manufacturing facility in Fremont, California (Source: Steve Jurvetson) Musk is now willing to convert his concerns into funding in order to make sure that Skynet never comes to fruition. With...
Read more...
When it comes to science fiction, the idea that artificial intelligence could be the cause of the human race’s extinction is a concept that has been used many times. For example, The Matrix and Terminator franchises depict futures where mankind is dominated, or being driven to extinction, by machines when the AI became self-aware. Now, as companies are creating thinking machines, Professor Stephen Hawking believes that such AI could threaten our existence. When responding to a question about the technology behind how he communicates, which involves a basic form of AI, Professor Hawking answered the question and proceeded to tell the BBC, “The development of full artificial intelligence could...
Read more...
Elon Musk’s vision for fleets of all-electric vehicles seems to be going well for the most part, some litigious miscellany notwithstanding, but the cars are rather expensive. However, that’s all going to change in 2017, when Tesla releases the Model 3 that will cost just $35,000. Granted, a $35,000 car is not what you’d call cheap, but it’s far more affordable than the nearly-$70,000 Tesla Model S sedan. Tesla Model S Based on an all-new platform, the Model 3 should have a range of over 200 miles on a single charge, and of course it will make use of Tesla’s growing nationwide network of Supercharger stations. There will no doubt be plenty of leaks and rumors about...
Read more...
