Day: May 15, 2018

Scientists believe that Europa has a thick icy crust, beneath which lies a salt water global ocean. The plumes of water vapor likely originate from this ocean. Galileo flew by the Jovian moon eleven times during its mission, which lasted from 1995 to 2003. The hope was that these flybys contained data about these plumes that scientists hadn’t yet discovered.

They were in luck. The team, led by Xianzhe Jia, zeroed in one particular flyby of Europa on December 16th, 1997 in which the spacecraft was just 206 km (128 miles) above the moon’s surface. During this encounter, scientists noticed a sudden drop in Europa’s magnetic field at a spot above the equator. They analyzed and modeled the data to explain this discrepancy. The most logical explanation is that Galileo flew directly through one of Europa’s water vapor plumes on this flyby. No other flybys picked up evidence of these eruptions, though this particular one was the closest that the spacecraft came to Europa’s surface.

This news is exciting for multiple reasons. First, it means that Europa could play host to life beneath its icy crust. After all, water is crucial for life on Earth, so scientists think our best bet for finding it on other planets is to locate sources of liquid water. Second, these plumes mean that a spacecraft could have easy access to Europa’s water without having to drill through its ice crust. NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft, currently scheduled to launch in 2022, is designed to fly closer than we’ve ever gotten to the Jovian moon. Now that we have this unearthed Galileo data, scientists can better plot the trajectory of the spacecraft to ensure we gather more data on these plumes, and Europa’s subsurface ocean as a result.

EasyMesh is purely about bringing together disparate devices, and manufacturers can still add unique features and improve specs to help their routers stand out from the pack, the WiFi Alliance’s Kevin Robinson told PC World. So, if you have an existing mesh network and one company develops vastly superior security measures, you might replace only the router connected to your modem instead of your entire network. Robinson also noted that EasyMesh is a software standard, so manufacturers can update firmware on existing routers to meet the certification.

Routers that support the standard might have an EasyMesh logo on the box, as The Verge notes, making it clear that they’re compatible. However, manufacturers don’t have to sign up. Google might decide it’s more advantageous to keep Google WiFi a closed shop and ensure owners can only repair or extend their networks with its own nodes, for example.

EasyMesh seems like it’ll be more of a boon to smaller companies (at least to begin with) than Google and Eero, who might find it easier to lock buyers in to their proprietary networks because they’re better-known brands. Among those supporting EasyMesh from the outset are AirTies, ARRIS, and ASSIA. Eventually, though, EasyMesh could help drive down prices of mesh networks if enough companies adopt it.

Didi is getting its permit just weeks after California introduced new rules around self-driving permits, the brunt of which focused on completely driverless vehicles. A total of 53 companies were part of this new permit batch, though many of them are no strangers to the technology. In addition to established car brands like BMW, Ford, GM, Honda, Tesla, Toyota and Subaru, you’ll also see tech giants like Apple, Lyft, NVIDIA and Samsung. Uber isn’t on the list as it reviews its autonomous driving project following the fatal crash in Arizona.

It’s unlikely that Didi will offer full-fledged autonomous ride hailing in the US. Whether or not the government’s wariness around Chinese businesses would hurt its chances, it would face the same problem Uber did in China — it’d have to face rivals with a clear home turf advantage. Whatever the company learns in the US will probably only be used outside of the country.

The intake is accompanied by 83 drivers who will be testing the vehicles. At this stage, Apple hasn’t been authorized to test self-driving cars independent of human supervision; for that, the company will need to submit a separate permit to the DMV — something Waymo did last month. The DMV also revealed that a second unnamed company had requested approval to begin driverless testing, but hasn’t parted with any additional details.

Going to need more than 140 characters to go over 🍎’s Project Titan. I call it “The Thing” pic.twitter.com/sLDJd7iYSa

— MacCallister Higgins (@macjshiggins) October 17, 2017

We do know that the autonomous car scene is heating up — Tesla and Drive.Ai are lagging behind Apple, but fellow California-native GM Cruise leads the pack with 104 vehicles with self-driving capacity. Still, one of the biggest issues inherent to automated technology is safety. The recent fatal accident involving one of Uber’s self-driving prototypes — apparently due to misaligned software — couldn’t be stopped by the test driver in time.

This indicates a margin of error that’s worth considering before rushing into fully self-driving trials; before the public can accept autonomous cars as a reliable alternative, companies need to gain its trust. There’s always a risk of mechanical failure, and human error can’t be ignored, either. but if companies identified problems and developed adequate prevention measures in advance, the number of accidents could experience a remarkable drop. That might push back release schedules, but autonomous safety should be top priority.