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Microsoft Azure just announced a new design for modular, portable data centers. Azure is the company's cloud computing service, used by big names including Boeing, eBay, and Samsung. The Azure Modular Datacenter (MDC) is designed to work just about anywhere, including nontraditional areas where cloud computing previously wouldn't have been possible. Data centers are the "backbone of the Internet," where data and photos from the cloud are physically stored

Elon Musk spoke at The Mars Society on making Starlink for Mars and Moonship on October 17, 2020 and highlights (recap) are here. Within this online conference Elon announced many interesting things. Self sustaining city on Mars is the core aim for Elon Musk's SpaceX and Starship spacecraft prototype. Elon Musk speaks that humanity have to made self sustaining city on Mars before the World War III start. The goal is to put enough people to Mars and enough tonnage. Metane is the general propellant. When the Starship will make stratosphere flight is currently secret. Elon said that Starship will...

In recent weeks, the media landscape has been awash with stories declaring the beginning of the end of the age of hydrocarbons in America and around the world. The facts on the ground, however, paint a different story. As of this year, renewable generation accounted for only 17.5% of the US’ energy mix. While Deloitte predicts this number will grow to just shy of 50% by 2050, it would be naïve to assume that fossil fuels won’t continue to play a significant role in our lives for the foreseeable future. The road to the energy system of the future is...

Speaking on the New York Times opinion podcast Sway, Musk told host Kara Swisher that he and his family would not be taking a coronavirus vaccine because he doesn't believe the virus poses a serious enough risk to their health. “I’m not at risk, neither are my kids,” Musk said. Musk said sweeping restrictions on movement and business enacted due to the coronavirus had “diminished" his "faith in humanity." The entrepreneur said that instead of sweeping lockdowns, governments should focus on isolating those most at risk while allowing the rest of society to continue with normal life. Musk told Fisher...

As someone who has posted multiple times about Starlink, I'm not sure how I feel about this, especially if it alters the purpose of Starlink. OTOH, if Starlink makes for a better more secure GPS system for our military then I would be more inclined to go for it.... Evidently The US Army has been in discussion with Starlink about using their constellation of satellites for GPS purposes that would make it much harder to jam..

Two years ago, planetary scientists reported the discovery of a large saltwater lake under the ice at Mars’s south pole, a finding that was met with excitement and some scepticism. Now, researchers say they’ve confirmed the presence of that lake — and found three more. The discovery, reported on 28 September in Nature Astronomy1, was made using radar data from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) orbiting Mars Express spacecraft. It follows the detection of a single subsurface lake in the same region in 2018 — which, if confirmed, would be the first body of liquid water ever detected on the...

Tesla Inc. unveiled battery innovations and increased efficiencies that appeared to underwhelm investors late Tuesday at its much anticipated “Battery Day.” Tesla stock’s TSLA, -8.89%, which had gained more than 4% after an upbeat post-shareholder-meeting presentation, turned south as soon as Chief Executive Elon Musk said that some of the innovations showcased at the event were “close to working” and some three years away from fruition. Shares fell as much as 7.6% in Tuesday’s after-hours session, but have pared some gains to trade down 6.0% in Wednesday’s premarket session. “It does work but not [yet] with a high yield,” Musk...

Col Steve Zodiac is suing Elon Musk and SpaceX for intellectual property theft of Fireball XL5's rocket design. Steve stated "Elon and SpaceX's Starship design is a rip off of our 1962 interplanetary Supermarionation design. Additionally, he stole our Neural Network design from my copilot Robert the Robot. And don't get me started on some of his other flying machine ideas, I had flying motorcycles before Elon was a glint in his mother's eye!" Col Steve added: "Just don't mess with our theme song!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxec0-bJw90

Elon Musk, head of SpaceX, has announced via Twitter that the company's SN8 rocket will take a test flight sometime next week. The plan is for the rocket is to soar up to 60,000 feet (18,300 meters) and then return to Earth in a controlled landing. SN8 is one in a line of SpaceX's Starships that are predecessors to vehicles for missions to the moon and Mars. SN5 and SN6 recently completed tests of 500 feet each, which the company calls short hops, before returning to Earth. They were meant to test the integrity of the steel walls of...

Elon Musk test-drove the ID.3 when he made a final stopover to meet with one of his biggest competitors, Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess. Musk also inspected the ID.4 electric SUV that Volkswagen will launch later this month. Before Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk returned to the US after a three-day visit to Germany, he made a final stopover to meet with one of his biggest competitors - Volkswagen AG CEO Herbert Diess. The two auto executives met at a small airport in Braunschweig for about two hours on Thursday evening and Musk test-drove VW’s ID.3 electric-car, according to...

Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk are no strangers to critics, and in the past, YouTube personality Steven Crowder of the “Change My Mind” series fame has counted himself among them. However, a search for the best Autopilot functionality to help his wife’s recent health issues led the conservative comedian to reconsider the merits of the all-electric carmaker’s products. “It’s not even close… It’s pretty damn cool. It is so fun to drive,” he expressed matter-of-factly on Tuesday’s Louder with Crowder episode. “That wasn’t the case back when I had a friend who had a Prius… [The Tesla] is more...

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk says that while his plan to establish a self-sustaining Mars colony may have slipped behind schedule, he still hopes to see Starship’s first orbital flight test in 2021. However, he warned those going there might not make it back. He said: “I want to emphasise that this is a very hard and dangerous, difficult thing, not for the faint of heart,” he added. “Good chance you’ll die, it’s going to be tough going, but it will be pretty glorious if it works out.”

Something's stirring over at Tesla. The company's highly anticipated Battery Day is just on the horizon, and ahead of the event, CEO Elon Musk shared some insight into energy density via Twitter. Replying to a Twitter thread surrounding the possibility of an electric airplane, Musk said batteries with 400 watt hours per kilogram are highly likely in the next three to four years. And not just one-off units, either, but mass produced batteries with long lifecycles, too. This type of energy density could provide 50% more energy density compared to today's batteries, noting today's batteries used in the Tesla Model...

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk stated in a recent interview that people in the United States are “entitled” and “complacent” while Chinese citizens are “smart” and “hard-working people.” CNBC reports that in a recent interview with Automotive News’ “Daily Drive” podcast, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk complained of the “entitled” and “complacent” character of U.S. citizens while praising the “smart” and “hard-working” people of China. This is far from the first time that Musk has cozied up to communist China. Musk criticized New York and California, states that have both gone to extreme lengths to support Musk’s businesses...

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has heaped praise on China's 'smart, hardworking' people when it comes to manufacturing electric vehicles and says 'entitled' and 'complacent' Americans are now taking things for granted. In an interview with the Automotive News podcast, the 49-year-old billionaire specifically criticized New York and California, which are two states that have given his businesses tax breaks and other government help. When asked his thoughts on China being a global electric vehicle strategy leader, Musk said: 'China rocks in my opinion.' 'The energy in China is great. People there, there's like a lot of smart, hard...

The left is losing the middle 11:32 AM · Jul 27, 2020·

Top tech leaders and other billionaires would be forced to hand over billions of dollars in wealth they've gained during the coronavirus pandemic under a new bill introduced by Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. The "Make Billionaires Pay Act" would impose a one-time 60% tax on wealth gains made by billionaires between March 18, 2020, and Jan. 1, 2021. The funds would be used to pay for out-of-pocket health-care expenses for all Americans for a year. As of Aug. 5, the bill would tax $731 billion in wealth accumulated by 467 billionaires since March...

Back in April, according to Space News, a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report assessing NASA's major programs put the estimated development cost of SLS at $8.75 billion and the ground infrastructure, called Exploration Ground Systems (EGS), at $2.33 billion. (Both figures are estimates from January, which were only published in April.) The new figures represent slight increases over the GAO estimates. But NASA is more likely comparing the new numbers to its baseline 2014 estimates for the SLS and EKG programs. According to Space News, SLS was then expected to cost $7.02 billion and EGS $1.84 billion; the new...

It’s not the first, but will it be the one to gain momentum? Among tech billionaire Elon Musk’s many projects is a smallish one called Neuralink, which is working on brain-computer interfacing. Last week, Musk released a video demonstrating Neuralink’s current status, in the form of a chip implanted in the brain of a domestic pig. So how big a deal is this? Chips implanted in animal brains are not particularly new; electrodes attached to brains in order to monitor their activity have been around for decades. Many older systems enabled physical actions with brain activity alone. In other words,...

So this morning I watched a webcast of the latest SpaceX Starlink launch from Cape Canaveral, some times I can see the rockets from my house....and I'm well over 100 miles away..... It's pretty cool to watch in less than 20 minutes you get to see the launch, first stage separation, the landing of the first stage booster on the barge at sea and then the release of the 60 satellites.... Two more launches are scheduled by late September or early October, which will put them over 800 satellites in orbit.... I would be happy with 100mb download speed and...