Items tagged with Elon-Musk
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...
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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...
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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,...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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....
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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...
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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...
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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...
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Tesla and it’s fervent visionary founder, Elon Musk, made a bold move this week by open sourcing its patents in hopes of jumpstarting the electric car industry. It’s a calculated move that wagers that Tesla can make the best electric cars even while allowing other companies to use its innovative technology all while taking away a chunk of the gas-powered car market. As part of its push to promote electric cars, Tesla also met with BMW this week to both promote electric cars and discuss how to better use Tesla’s charging stations. No other details of the talks were revealed, but a BMW spokesperson told Reuters that “Both companies are strongly committed to the success of...
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No one can accuse Tesla’s founder Elon Musk of thinking too small, and his latest vision is for a monstrous “gigafactory” to make batteries (at a reduction in cost of about 30%) that will not only power electric Tesla cars but would also serve any number of other applications in various industries. According to the San Jose Mercury News, Musk told a crowd this week that Panasonic among other companies will partner with Tesla on the gigafactory, which is expected to cost $5 billion and cover some 10 million square feet of space. It will also employ about 6,500 workers, which should be plenty of incentive for states to encourage Tesla to bring the gigafactory within their borders....
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After a couple of accidents involving Tesla’s Model S electric car resulted in fires, the company has scrambled to find a solution that didn’t involve completely re-engineering the undercarriage and engine compartment. That solution has taken the form of a relatively simple three-part titanium shield underneath the vehicle. The fires resulted when road debris punctured the Model S’s battery compartment when the vehicle ran over them at high speeds, so Tesla decided to simply improve that specific area of the car. There are now three titanium pieces protecting the compartment. There’s a hollow bar designed to deflect or absorb the impact of road debris and at least knock...
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Setting aside for a moment how jarring it is to see Ashton Kutcher’s name associated with Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, the trio are among investors in a startup called Vicarious FPC that has lofty goals for artificial intelligence technology. Specifically, Vicarious wants to essentially replicate the human brain’s neocortex, which is the area that involves thought and language, spatial senses, body movements, and more. That’s of course the great dream of all AI--if you can accomplish all of that you basically have a human--but Vicarious thinks it can pull it off with its Recursive Cortical Network. This image is in the public domain This is the company, incidentally, that...
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Although it’s not exactly on par with the completion of, say, the first transcontinental railroad, Tesla has completed a coast-to-coast network of Supercharger stations to allow drivers of the Model S electric sedan to road trip across the country--for free. It’s a rather circuitous path, not at all a straight shot; starting from the Northwest, you can drive from Seattle down through L.A., over to New England, and down to the tip of Florida. Parts of Texas have them, too. Elon Musk tweeted that now, 80% of the U.S. population is covered with the 71 stations. More stations on that route on “coming soon”, and later this year and into 2015, it looks like the whole country...
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The eventual success of Elon Musk’s proposed Hyperloop transportation system that promises to offer fast mass transit in record time is by no means assured, but there continues to be steps taken toward that end. After Drs. Marco Villa and Patricia Galloway signed up for the project, the team formed an actual company called Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, and they have a plan. There are four sections to the project--System, Capsule, Tube, and Manufacturing, Integration, and Test--and each section will have a lead that works under Villa and Galloway. Each section leader and teams of volunteers will explore the questions pertinent to each subject and attempt to conquer the problems...
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This guy, Elon Musk. He’s eccentric in all the right ways, such as when he dreams up moonshot-style ideas, throws money at the projects, and insists that he can pull them off in absurdly brief timelines. His latest rich-guy romp pertains to the iconic Lotus Esprit that James Bond drove in The Spy Who Loved Me, which doubled in the film as a submarine when 007 drove it off a pier. Musk, founder of Tesla motors, snapped up the carmarine (submarcar?) for $866,000 at an auction. The identity of the buyer was unknown until Jalopnik learned about it from a “credible source”. Credit: Jalopnik This is best part: Although the car is currently just a beat-up old movie prop, Musk is planning...
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk is a dreamer, but he also has a lot of money, some serious brain power of his own, and now he also has the support of the crowdsourced JumpStartFund and two engineers with impressive resumes that are going to help him create his Hyperloop transportation system. The project will be headed up by Drs. Marco Villa and Patricia Galloway. Villa was the former director of SpaceX mission operations, and Galloway was the first woman President of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), among numerous other achievements. Hyperloop passenger capsule Musk’s proposed Hyperloop system would be solar powered and would use a linear induction motor with a compressor to accelerate...
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There’s a bit of a race to roll out fleets of cars that can either drive themselves with minimal input from a human driver or are completely autonomous, and Tesla is a company that believes it can make that a reality in 3 years. Although allowing that a fully autonomous car was not likely anytime soon, Tesla CEO and futurist Elon Musk is looking for engineers to help him develop driverless technology that would get him close. All of the technology will be developed in-house at Tesla; in other words, the company won’t be using or licensing anyone else’s technology. Musk also indicated that the system would include tiny flush-mounted cameras, radar, and “lots of software...
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