Day: February 8, 2021

https://www.engadget.com/trump-parler-failed-dealmaking-235341273.html

Parler, the “free speech” focused social network that attracted many right wing and extremist voices, remains offline several days after the company’s board canceled its CEO. The site is staying in the news, however, as a BuzzFeed News report cites documents that apparently show negotiations between the Trump Organization and Parler over a deal to make the site his primary social network.

While the former president utilized Twitter directly, and his campaign relied heavily on Facebook throughout both presidential elections, he never officially joined Parler. Why he didn’t take his talents to a friendlier environment, even after being deplatformed by the major social networks and admitting to negotiations with other sites, was unclear but this may fill in some of those gaps.

While BuzzFeed’s report doesn’t reveal direct involvement by Trump himself, the documents they saw show Parler offering a 40 percent stake in the company if he would post content to its platform hours ahead of the others. The talks are said to have occurred last summer during the campaign, and again in November after the president lost his attempt at re-election.

Former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale is quoted saying the president wasn’t involved with the discussions, however legal experts cited claim that if it had happened, taking an ownership stake in exchange for exclusivity could have violated anti-bribery laws.

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

February 5, 2021 at 06:00PM

https://www.engadget.com/elon-musk-provides-more-details-for-his-100-million-carbon-capture-x-prize-130527781.html

After teasing it last month, Elon Musk has unveiled his $100 million XPrize competition with the lofty aim of removing carbon from the atmosphere to help stem climate change. The competition opens up today to teams around the world and will run for four years.

In 18 months, judges will select the top 15 teams, each of which will receive $1 million. At the same time, $200,000 scholarships will be awarded to 25 separate student teams who enter. The top three teams will receive $10 million, $20 million and $50 million for the third-, second-place and grand prize winners, respectively.

Getting that money won’t be easy, though. The winners will have to develop technology “that can pull carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere or oceans and lock it away permanently in an environmentally benign way,” the XPrize contest rules state. Judges are hoping to see a solution that can remove a ton of CO2 per day, with the ability to scale that up to millions of tons.

“The world’s leading scientists estimate that we may need to remove as much as 6 gigatons of CO2 per year by 2030, and 10 gigatons per year by 2050 to avoid the worst effects of climate change,” the XPrize page states. “We need bold, radical tech innovation and scale up that goes beyond limiting CO2 emissions, but actually removes CO2 already in the air and oceans. If humanity continues on a business-as-usual path, the global average temperature could increase 6?(C) by the year 2100.”

Despite the promises of the Paris accord, atmospheric CO2 levels continue to accelerate due to human activities — even though folks are stuck inside due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, sea levels continue to rise while glaciers and icebergs melt. Just this weekend, a Himalayan glacier that has receded considerably over the last four decades collapsed into a river in India, creating an avalanche that has killed at least 19 people so far.

Curtailing exhaust emissions from cars, homes and power plants is a necessary action, but it may not be enough — we might actually need to remove the CO2 that’s already there. However, carbon capture technology is still a new idea and current solutions are expensive. Proposed plans range from scrubbing emissions from power plants and storing them underground, to literally sucking in air, scrubbing out the CO2 and blowing it back into the atmosphere (direct capture).

So far, the simplest method is simply planting trees — though it would require a lot of them to have a significant impact on CO2 levels. In any case, something has to be done so our grandkids won’t be living underwater, and Musk’s new XPrize may at least kick off some good ideas. “We want to make a truly meaningful impact. Carbon negativity, not neutrality,” Musk said in a statement.

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

February 8, 2021 at 07:09AM

https://www.autoblog.com/2021/02/08/tesla-bitcoin-investment-payment/

via Autoblog https://ift.tt/1afPJWx

February 8, 2021 at 08:25AM