The hypar kayak is a modular smartboat. It can transform from kayak to canoe, sailboat to dinghy, or even into a solar-powered motor boat. It changes from boat to backpack in less than 5 minutes.
Transcript: Carry this smartboat on your back. The hypar kayak is a modular smartboat. The design allows it to be transformed from kayak to canoe, sailboat to dinghy, or even into a solar-powered motor boat. Hypar can be converted from boat to backpack in less than 5 minutes and can last a total of 20,000 repetitive folds. Hypar is made of a custom akyboard polypropylene material. It weighs a total of just 16 pounds. Learn more at hyparsmart.com
Autoblog Minute is a short-form video series covering the hottest news in automotive and transportation. You’ll find segments on everything from the latest vehicle concepts, to autonomous drones, to viral videos. This bite-size content will get you quickly caught up with what’s going on in the industry.
brought up the rear with just a “Marginal.” Both the Pacifica and Sienna lost points because the structure around the passengers collapsed to differing extents, leading to parts of the structure intruding into the passenger compartment. The Pacifica didn’t intrude enough to harm passengers, with each injury area still having a Good rating, but the Sienna’s structure intruded far enough to potentially harm the leg and foot areas, leading to an Acceptable rating in those specific areas.
for LATCH child seat anchor ease of use. Once again, the Odyssey aced the test with a Good+ rating, which is awarded for both ease of use and offering multiple anchor point options. The Pacifica and Sienna swap the crash test ratings, with a Marginal for the
. It earns an Acceptable rating in LATCH usability, and its headlights actually earned a Good rating. It hasn’t undergone passenger-side small overlap crash testing yet. If it fares well, it could get bumped up to a Top Safety Pick+ rating.
From California to Switzerland and south to Australia, a global rash of heat waves have scorched our planet in recent weeks, exacerbating drought and wildfires. So, you may want to pour yourself a cold glass of water before you read this.
New long term forecasts suggest the next four years will be unusually warm with higher chances of extreme temps, according to research published Tuesday in Nature Communications.
The study, authored by a pair of European climate scientists, uses sta
NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins meets with employees at SpaceX on Monday.
SpaceX
HAWTHORNE, Calif.—Across the cavernous rocket factory, the buzz, whirr, and whine of various machinery never ebbed. Even when the president of SpaceX and four blue-suited astronauts strode confidently onto the factory floor Monday afternoon and took up microphones to address several dozen reporters, the incessant work inside the SpaceX Falcon 9 hatchery continued.
On one side of the factory, technicians produced rolls of carbon fiber and built myriad payload fairings, which cannot yet be reused during a launch. To meet its cadence of a launch every other week, SpaceX must build at least two of these each month. Another section of the factory fabricated the Merlin 1-D rocket engines that power the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage. And in another large white room behind glass, several Dragon spacecraft were in various states of completion.
So when Gwynne Shotwell stopped in front of this Dragon clean room, held a microphone aloft, and welcomed her “extraordinary” astronaut guests to the factory, the noise did not abate. Rather, it seemed to crescendo as Shotwell raised her voice to introduce the crew of SpaceX’s first human mission, NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken. Likewise, the din continued as she welcomed Mike Hopkins and Victor Glover, crew members for the second flight of the Dragon spacecraft.
For his part, Glover acknowledged the background bedlam as cameras clicked and reporters crowded around to hear him and the other astronauts speak. “All of that noise in the background,” he said, “that is the sound of amazing things happening.”
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell and NASA astronaut Bob Behnken share a laugh before Monday’s event.
Eric Berger
Shotwell and the astronauts spoke to the media in front of a clean room where the spacecraft for the first crewed Dragon mission is nearing completion.
Eric Berger
A closer look at the spacecraft.
Eric Berger
Outside, a Dragon mockup was looking splendid.
Eric Berger
Oh look, there’s the first Falcon 9 first stage that SpaceX ever landed in the background.
Eric Berger
Inside, here’s the first Dragon spacecraft ever sent to orbit and recovered.
Eric Berger
After meeting with the media, the astronauts came on stage for an event with employees at SpaceX.
Eric Berger
No launches today, so mission control at SpaceX was quiet.
Eric Berger
A close-up of the SpaceX spacesuit. Astronaut Doug Hurley said the helmet was lighter and more comfortable than previous spacesuits he has worn.
Eric Berger
This is a SuperDraco thruster used as part of Dragon’s launch escape system.
Eric Berger
These smaller Draco thrusters are used to control the spacecraft in space.
Eric Berger
This proved a nice moment for the upstart SpaceX, which has muscled its way to the center of the aerospace industry during the last decade. Now, finally, the company created to fly humans to Mars had its first astronauts. They smiled and waved. And while, nominally, they were here to help design their ride to space, the regular visits to this factory by astronauts serve another, deeper purpose.
The upstart rises
On Monday, SpaceX invited reporters to its factory for an astronaut event. This was the first time media was invited inside, en masse, in more than four years, when company founder Elon Musk first unveiled the Crew Dragon spacecraft. Much has changed since then. The Dragon will no longer land propulsively, on the ground, but rather will splash into the sea. And SpaceX didn’t quite make Musk’s timeline of crewed flights, which had first launch in 2016.
Even so, SpaceX has made remarkable progress on the crewed Dragon. At this point, SpaceX remains the clubhouse leader in the effort to return human launches to US soil and become the first private company to launch people into space next year, with a timeline running a few months ahead of Boeing and its Starliner spacecraft.
The progress seems all the more remarkable because of SpaceX’s startup status. Back in 2011 when the company joined the commercial crew competition, SpaceX had barely flown an orbital rocket. By contrast, Boeing has a century of aerospace experience, playing a major role in nearly all of NASA’s human exploration programs since the dawn of the space age.
SpaceX has also done so for significantly less money than Boeing. Musk’s company offered to finalize development of the Dragon spacecraft and fly six operational missions to the International Space Station for $2.6 billion. For the same service, Boeing sought, and received, $4.2 billion. At such a lower price point, Ars asked, could SpaceX even be profitable?
“Knowing I could have bid more, after the fact, I sure wish I would have bid more,” Shotwell said Monday, with a laugh. She then turned serious. “But that doesn’t change the fact that we’re doing this job. I hate to talk about profit when we’re flying astronauts, but this will not be a losing proposition for SpaceX.”
Safety, she emphasized, was the paramount aim, not profits.
Leashing a Dragon
During the event at SpaceX, engineers guided reporters through various displays. Outside, under a resplendent blue sky with the rolling hills of Palos Verdes in the distance, media was invited to crawl into a low-fidelity mockup of the crew Dragon spacecraft. This was a roomy vehicle, especially in comparison to NASA’s current ride to the space station, a cramped Soyuz with a capacity of three. The Dragon will comfortably carry a normal complement of four for NASA, but seven seats can fit inside.
On the second floor of its main factory, where astronauts have trained in recent years, SpaceX also showed off two simulators publicly for the first time. This marked the first time SpaceX has revealed details about the controls and the interior of its crewed spacecraft.
The cockpit simulator demonstrated the controls that Dragon astronauts will have at their command. In comparison to the space shuttle and its more than 1,000 buttons, switches, and controls, the Dragon capsule has a modest array of three flat screens and two rows of buttons below.
These touch screens selectively display the necessary controls during flight and are the primary interface astronauts have with the vehicle. Below are two rows of manual buttons, 38 in total, that provide back-up control of the spacecraft. Many of the buttons are situated beneath clear panels, intended to never be used, because they are often the third option after the touch screens and ground control of the Dragon.
Here is the Dragon spacecraft’s “cockpit simulator.” Note the three touchscreens and two rows of buttons below.
Eric Berger
Both the commander, left, and pilot, right, will have access to the controls.
Eric Berger
The launch escape system manual control is located in the center, easily reachable by both astronauts.
Eric Berger
This is the Dragon simulator, the highest-fidelity mockup at SpaceX.
Eric Berger
A closer look at the seats inside.
Eric Berger
Astronauts will recline, with the control panels (shown here) above them.
Eric Berger
This is a docking hatch simulator.
Eric Berger
Isn’t it nice that instructions are attached?
Eric Berger
One control stood out—a large black and red handle in the middle of the console with “EJECT” printed in clear white letters above it. This initiates the launch escape system, which rapidly pulls the spacecraft away from the rocket in the case of an emergency during the ascent into space. It must be pulled, then twisted. Normally the flight computers would initiate such a maneuver, but the prominence of the escape system handle underlines its importance. Notably, after the vehicle reaches orbit, this control becomes “deadened,” such that accidentally pulling it in space would do nothing.
SpaceX engineers also facilitated tours of their Dragon simulator, the highest-fidelity spacecraft module they have for astronaut training. The entire interior of the vehicle emulates the real spacecraft, complete with flight software and a life-support system.
The four astronauts, Behnken, Hurley, Hopkins, and Glover, have begun flying to Hawthorne on nearly a weekly basis to train in the simulator, flying everything from nominal missions to moderate failure modes and even simulating the complete loss of cabin pressure or other emergencies.
“Being able to fly the first flight of a vehicle as a test pilot is a once-a-generational type of opportunity,” Hurley said. “But I would also say that we have a lot of work left to do, and we are in it for the long haul to make this vehicle as great as possible for our friends back in the astronaut office, that maybe haven’t even gotten hired yet, but they’re going to fly on this vehicle someday. We take that job very seriously.”
A deeper purpose
Astronauts play an important role in designing spacecraft. They don’t have much say about the engineering guts of the vehicles, but they do provide input on accessibility of the controls, comfort of the vehicle, and overall safety. Behnken, Hurley, Hopkins, and Glover are all more than qualified to do so, as they are all engineers in addition to being test pilots.
Beyond training and advising, however, visits like the one Monday serve another, perhaps still more important purpose for the astronauts, NASA, and contractor companies. They offer a stark reminder that real humans, with real spouses and children, will climb into these vehicles to test all of the hardware that should work in space but cannot be guaranteed to work in ground simulations. There is only one way to find this out for sure, and that is to go fly.
Shotwell acknowledged this. Every customer is important, she said, but then expressed confidence that the spacecraft and rockets flying humans into space would have 7,000 “extra sets of eyes” on them—the current number of employees at SpaceX.
Asked by a reporter what he feared most about spaceflight, Glover, the only rookie astronaut, did not hesitate. “The only thing I’m ever afraid of is not coming home to my family,” he said. “That was true on deployments on a carrier, and that’s the same thing I feel now. That’s the only thing I truly fear.”
Later Monday, hundreds of young, exuberant SpaceX employees gathered beneath the first Dragon spacecraft to ever fly into orbit, located in the main entry to the SpaceX factory. On a small stage, Shotwell asked each of the astronauts to briefly introduce themselves.
Four astronauts, Gwynne Shotwell, and Benjamin Reed on stage inside the SpaceX factory Monday.
Eric Berger
Glover, again, returned to his family during his brief remarks. “The thing I want you to know about me is that I’m married and I have four beautiful daughters, and that’s the most important thing.” For 10 seconds, the crowd cheered and clapped at this.
Spaceflight is a matter of physics and engineering and machinery. But when payloads are people, the humanity of the enterprise really hits home. For a brief time, the resonance of that message on Monday seemed to drown out even the constant banging and whirring of a factory that never seems to sleep.
If like most people you thought Google stopped tracking your location once you turned off Location History in your account settings, you were wrong. According to an AP investigation published Monday, even if you disable Location History, the search giant still tracks you every time you open Google Maps, get certain automatic weather updates, or search for things in your browser. There’s a way to stop it—but it takes some digging.
The problem affects anyone with an Android phone and iPhone users running Google Maps on their devices, according to the AP report, which researchers at Princeton University verified. That’s more than two billion people.
The Google support page for managing and deleting your Location History says that once you turn it off, “the places you go are no longer stored. When you turn off Location History for your Google Account, it’s off for all devices associated with that Google Account.” The AP’s investigation found that’s not true. In fact, turning off your Location History only stops Google from creating a timeline of your location that you can view. Some apps will still track you, and store time-stamped location data from your devices.
More specifically, the AP was able to track Princeton researcher Gunes Acar’s home address, as well as his daily activities, using just Google Web & App activity, which he had shared with the news agency.
“If Google is representing to its users that they can turn off or pause location tracking but it’s nevertheless tracking their location, that seems like textbook deception to me,” says Alan Butler, senior council at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
To actually turn off location tracking, Google says you have to navigate to a setting buried deep in your Google Account called Web & App Activity, which is set by default to share your information including not just location but IP address and more. Finding that setting isn’t easy. At all.
Sign in to your Google account on a browser on iOS or your desktop, or through the Android settings menu. In the browser, access your account settings by finding Google Account in the dropdown in the upper right-hand corner, then head to Personal Info & Privacy, choose Go to My Activity, then in the left-hand nav click Activity Controls. Once there you’ll see the setting called Web & App Activity, which you can toggle off.
On your Android phone, go from Google settings to Google Account, then tap on Data & personalization. You’ll find Web & App Activity there.
Google further buries the notion that Web & App Activity has anything to do with location. In fact, the setting sits right above the Location History option, suggesting at a glance that the two things are quite distinct. And Google’s vanilla description of Web & App Activity is that it “Saves your activity on Google sites and apps to give you faster searches, better recommendations, and more personalized experiences in Maps, Search, and other Google services.” From there, you have to tap Learn more, then scroll to What’s saved as Web & App Activity, and tap again on Info about your searches & more before Google says anything about location whatsoever.
To stop that tracking, toggle the blue Web & App Activity slider to off. Google will then give you a popup warning: “Pausing Web & App Activity may limit or disable more personalized experiences across Google services. For example, you may stop seeing more relevant search results or recommendations about places you care about. Even when this setting is paused, Google may temporarily use information from recent searches in order to improve the quality of the active search session.”
‘This really reads like a classic case of an unfairly deceptive business practice. I really think that the FTC needs to investigate right away.’
Alan Butler, EPIC
Google told the AP that it provides “clear descriptions of these tools,” but it takes eight taps on an Android phone—if you know exactly where you’re going—to even access that description to begin with. As the AP notes, most people who explicitly turned off their Location History tracking, as WIRED and many other privacy conscious publications have advised people to do, would have assumed they had already taken all steps necessary to keep their location private.
In spite of this, a Google spokesperson told WIRED that “we make sure Location History users know that when they disable the product, we continue to use location to improve the Google experience when they do things like perform a Google search or use Google for driving directions.” This apparently refers to a warning that appears if you turn off Location History, which says that it “does not affect other location services on your device.” However, nowhere in that popup does it indicate that you can turn off other forms of location tracking by pausing Web & App Activity.
“Tracking people without their consent and without proper controls in place is creepy and wrong,” wrote UC Berkeley graduate researcher K Shankar in a blog post that first alerted the AP to the problem.
Beyond creepiness, though, Google’s location-tracking may also violate the Federal Trade Commission’s consumer protection statutes against deceptive privacy practices. “This really reads like a classic case of an unfairly deceptive business practice. I really think that the FTC needs to investigate right away,” says Butler.
Google’s Location History situation is reminiscent of Facebook’s various runnings with the FTC. In 2011, the agency famously settled with Facebook over the social media giant’s inability to keep privacy promises to consumers. As part of that deal, Facebook agreed to a consent decree in which it promised to reform how it tracked and shared user data. That decree has been in the news lately, after the FTC opened a new investigation this spring into whether Facebook’s data sharing with Cambridge Analytica violated its 2011 settlement. The FTC has more recently penalized Uber, Vizio, the phone maker Blu, and many others for misleading customers about how their data was collected, stored, and shared.
Former FTC chief technologist Ashkan Soltani noted in a tweet that Google’s “confusing privacy dialogue” may merit a closer look from the agency.
“Google’s reaction—that users can delete individual data points, or users can go deep down in settings and turn off certain web settings that appear to have nothing to do with location, therefore it should be okay, I think fundamentally misunderstands what they’re dealing with,” says Butler. “When you’re creating a historical log of someone’s movements over time, that’s information that’s uniquely sensitive and needs to be handled accordingly.”
The revelations are likely to touch off a firestorm for Google. For now, the best thing you can do is navigate through your labyrinthine settings, and hit “pause” on something you likely thought you’d already stopped.
AI can spot your eye disease with 94.5 percent accuracy
Even more impressively, it can explain its choices.
Explain yourself: The black box has long been a challenge of artificial intelligence. This refers to the tendency of algorithms to spit out results without explaining what went into them—and it can make weeding out bias difficult.
The news: In a paper released in Nature Medicine yesterday, DeepMind researchers described an AI system that can identify more than 50 diseases, refer them to a specialist, and, most importantly, indicate which portion of a medical scan prompted the diagnosis.
Why it matters: Explainable AI is crucial for increased use of the technology in medicine. “Doctors and patients don’t want just a black box answer, they want to know why,” Ramesh Raskar, an associate professor at MIT, told Stat. “There is a standard of care, and if the AI technique doesn’t follow that standard of care, people are going to be uncomfortable with it.”
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Image credit:
Amanda Dalbjörn | Unsplash
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Caenorhabditis elegans would make an ace fighter pilot. That’s because the roughly one-millimeter-long roundworm, a type of nematode that is widely used in biological studies, is remarkably adept at tolerating acceleration. Human pilots lose consciousness when they pull only 4 or 5 g‘s (1 g is the force of gravity at Earth’s surface), but C. elegans emerges unscathed from 400,000 g‘s, new research shows.
This is an important benchmark; rocks have been theorized to experience similar forces when blasted off planet surfaces and into space by volcanic eruptions or asteroid impacts. Any hitchhiking creatures that survive could theoretically seed another planet with life, an idea known as ballistic panspermia.
Tiago Pereira and Tiago de Souza, both geneticists at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, spun hundreds of roundworms in a device called an ultracentrifuge. After an hour, the researchers pulled them out, convinced that the animals would be dead. But they were “swimming freely as if nothing had happened,” Pereira says. More than 96 percent were still alive, and the survivors did not exhibit any adverse physical or behavioral changes. “Life tolerates much more stress than we typically think,” as Pereira puts it. His team’s results were published online in May in the journal Astrobiology.
Still, this extreme test does not replicate the full brunt of an interplanetary journey, the researchers concede. For one thing, it took roughly five minutes for the ultracentrifuge to build up to these massive g-forces—whereas rocks blasted off a planet would reach them within a 1,000th of a second. Nor did the experiment replicate the harsh conditions of space. “Other factors, such as temperature, vacuum and cosmic radiation, should also be tested,” says Cihan Erkut, a biochemist at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, who was not involved in the research. Pereira says his team’s work is a starting point for other experiments to develop “an understanding of the limits of life.”
Autoblog Minute is a short-form video series covering the hottest news in automotive and transportation. You’ll find segments on everything from the latest vehicle concepts, to autonomous drones, to viral videos. This bite-size content will get you quickly caught up with what’s going on in the industry.
