Tag: next-generation
Next-generation Zipline P2 Zip drone comes with an adorable ‘droid’ sidekick
In 2013, former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos predicted Prime Air, the company’s then newly announced drone delivery unit, would be flying within four to five years. A decade later, the service appears to be no closer to reality than it was in 2018. However, some drone startups have had more success. Among those is Zipline, which says it’s on track to complete about 1 million deliveries by the end of the year. By 2025, the company expects to operate more flights than most airlines, a feat it intends to accomplish thanks to its next-generation drone, the Platform 2 or P2 Zip.
Zipline’s latest drone consists of two autonomous vehicles that will work in unison with one another to deliver packages that weigh up to 8 pounds. The first is a UAV that can complete a 10-mile flight in about 10 minutes. When it arrives at its destination, P2 Zip will hover about 300 feet off the ground and deploy its sidekick, an adorable “fully autonomous delivery droid.” The latter descends from its counterpart using a tether – the company is called Zipline for a reason – and gently drops off your package. According to Zipline, P2 Zip is nearly silent in flight, producing a sound the company claims is similar to rustling leaves in the wind, and precise enough, thanks to its droid companion, to deliver packages to areas as small as patio tables and front steps. Zipline CEO Keller Rinaudo Cliffton told CNBC P2 Zip may even put an end to porch pirates since the drone is fast enough to enable on-demand delivery.
For more distant deliveries, the P2 Zip can fly up to 24 miles one way from dock to dock, charging at each docking station before completing the next leg of its journey and picking up new cargo. The drone’s charging station looks like something from science fiction. It features a chute for the delivery droid to enter the building the station is attached to, and what looks like a net to catch one of the drones if they fall. The company told CNBC setting up a P2 Zip dock takes about as much time as installing an electric vehicle charger. It envisions restaurants and hospitals installing the dock to enable the fast delivery of food and prescriptions.
Zipline already has a few customers eager to test the P2 Zip, including restaurant chain Sweetgreen, Intermountain Health in Salt Lake City, Michigan Medicine and Multicare Healthcare in Washington State. Before those companies gain access to the drone sometime next year, the startup plans to conduct more than 10,000 test flights with about 100 aircraft.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/next-generation-zipline-p2-zip-drone-comes-with-an-adorable-droid-sidekick-183238257.html?src=rss
Mercedes-Benz’s next-generation car OS is built around paid software bundles
Mercedes-Benz is developing a new in-house operating system to power its next generation of electric vehicles. Announced today at an event the automaker held in California, Mercedes said MB.OS – short for Mercedes-Benz Operating System – will deliver enhancements in safety, automated driving and navigation.
The automaker is working with several partners to build its new software stack, including NVIDIA, Luminar and Google. Mercedes will lean on NVIDIA for the company’s software, data and AI expertise. The GPU maker’s Orin chipset will also power the first generation of electric cars Mercedes builds based on its upcoming Mercedes Modular Architecture (MMA) platform. The automaker expects the first MMA EV to arrive by mid-decade.
As for Luminar and Google, the former will provide Mercedes with its LiDAR technology, while the latter will work with the company to build a branded navigation experience incorporating features from Google Maps. In the meantime, Mercedes is partnering with Google to bring the company’s “Place Details” data to all cars that sport the latest version of its MBUX infotainment system. You can use the integration to look up a local business, find out when it opens, and see photos of the inside and what other Google users have to say about it. Mercedes plans to open MB.OS to other partners as well, including TikTok, Zoom and even Angry Birds developer Rovio.
All MMA EVs will ship with the hardware needed for Level 2 automated driving. Mercedes is also working with NVIDIA and Luminar to offer Drive Pilot, a Level 3 automated driving system. The software will arrive later this year in 2024 EQS and S-Class models. Naturally, MB.OS will also enable Mercedes to deliver over-the-air updates, allowing it to add new features to existing cars.
The company isn’t shy about the fact that some upgrades may cost a one-time fee or come as part of a subscription package. In fact, Mercedes has already announced a handful of software bundles it will offer to owners of cars with MB.OS. MB.Connect, for instance, will bring together the company’s navigation, entertainment and communication features in one package. Other bundles, such as MB.Charge, will provide customers with priority access to Mercedes-Benz charging stations. The automaker says it will allow drivers to explore and buy upgrades for their Benz online, through the Mercedes mobile app and directly from the car.
“The company is confident that this strategic approach to software and hardware development will be the basis for lifetime revenues as well as additional contributions,” Mercedes said, adding it expects software revenue from bundles like MB.Connect to contribute “a low-to-mid single-digit billion euro figure” to its bottom line by mid-decade.
Geekbench 6: What you need to know about the next-generation benchmark
NASA Picks Next-Generation Blue Origin Rocket for Mars Mission – CNET
OpenAI’s ‘next-generation’ AI model is behind Microsoft’s new search
Microsoft is making a big AI play with its revamped Bing search engine and Edge web browser, both of which are powered by what appears to be exclusive access to the successor to OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT large language model. The new AI is unnamed for now, only described in a blog post as following: …A […]
OpenAI’s ‘next-generation’ AI model is behind Microsoft’s new search by Devin Coldewey originally published on TechCrunch
MIT engineers are making vertical micro-LEDs for next-generation displays and VR goggles
Samsung and LG Preparing for Next-Generation iPad Pro With OLED Display
Apple plans to introduce new 13-inch MacBook Air, 11.1-inch iPad Pro, and 13-inch iPad Pro models with OLED displays in 2024, according to display industry analyst Ross Young, who has a proven track record with Apple rumors. Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo also expects the first MacBook with an OLED display to launch next year.
Young previously said the new MacBook Air and iPad Pro models would use “two-stack” OLED displays with two red, green, and blue emission layers for increased brightness. He also said all of the devices would support ProMotion for up to a 120Hz refresh rate.
All existing iPads and MacBooks are equipped with backlit LCD displays, whereas OLED displays have self-emitting pixels and do not require backlighting, allowing for higher contrast ratio, greater color accuracy, and lower power consumption. Apple already uses OLED displays for the latest Apple Watch and iPhone models, excluding the iPhone SE.
Meanwhile, the Apple Watch Ultra is expected to switch to a microLED display in 2024, and other Apple products will likely follow over the course of several years. microLED will be the next display technology that Apple adopts after OLED, paving the way for even higher contrast ratio, increased brightness, and lower power consumption.
This article, “Samsung and LG Preparing for Next-Generation iPad Pro With OLED Display” first appeared on MacRumors.com
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What to Expect From the Next-Generation 14-Inch and 16-Inch MacBook Pro
Ahead of the potential launch, we have recapped everything that we have heard so far about the next-generation 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro.
M2 Pro and M2 Max Chips
A key new feature of the next MacBook Pro models is expected to be M2 Pro and M2 Max chips for faster performance. Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman said those chips will offer only “marginal” performance improvements over the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips in the current models, as leaked benchmarks suggested last year.
Wi-Fi 6E
Wireless frequency ranges mentioned in the Canadian regulatory filing indicate that the new MacBook Pro will support Wi-Fi 6E, which extends Wi-Fi to the 6GHz band for more bandwidth, faster speeds, and lower latency. The current 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro support standard Wi-Fi 6, which is limited to 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands.
Faster RAM
The new MacBook Pro models are rumored to be equipped with “very high-bandwidth, high-speed RAM,” but details are unclear. On a purely speculative basis, it is possible that the new models could be equipped with Samsung’s latest LPDDR5X RAM for up to 33% increased memory bandwidth with up to 20% less power consumption.
No Design Changes
Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and Gurman have both suggested that the new MacBook Pro models will have no external design changes and few other major features.
This aspect wouldn’t be too surprising, as Apple fully redesigned the high-end MacBook Pros in October 2021 with more ports like HDMI and MagSafe, a notch at the top of the display, an all-black keyboard area, and more. MacBooks often go multiple generations between major hardware changes, so a spec bump in 2023 is a reasonable expectation.
This article, “What to Expect From the Next-Generation 14-Inch and 16-Inch MacBook Pro” first appeared on MacRumors.com
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Will This Next-Generation Display Technology Change the World?
Meet electroluminescent quantum dots:
Until now, quantum dots were always a supporting player in another technology’s game. A futuristic booster for older tech, elevating that tech’s performance. QDs weren’t a character on their own. That is no longer the case. The prototype I saw was completely different. No traditional LEDs and no OLED. Instead of using light to excite quantum dots into emitting light, it uses electricity. Nothing but quantum dots. Electroluminescent, aka direct-view, quantum dots. This is huge.
Or at least, has the potential to be huge. Theoretically, this will mean thinner, more energy-efficient displays. It means displays that can be easier, as in cheaper, to manufacture. That could mean even less expensive, more efficient, bigger-screen TVs. The potential in picture quality is at least as good as QD-OLED, if not better. The tech is scalable from tiny, lightweight, high-brightness displays for next-generation VR headsets, to highly efficient phone screens, to high-performance flat-screen TVs.
The article predicts the simpler structure means “Essentially, you can print an entire QD display onto a surface without the heat required by other ‘printable’ tech…. Just about any flat or curved surface could be a screen.” This leads to QD screens not just on TVs and phones, but on car windshields, eyeglass lenses, and even bus or subway windows. (“These will initially be pitched by cities as a way to show people important info, but inevitably they’ll be used for advertising. That’s certainly not a knock against the tech, just how things work in the world….”)
Nanosys is calling this direct-view, electroluminescent quantum dot tech “nanoLED,” and told CNET that “their as-yet-unnamed manufacturing partner is going to be talking more about the technology in a few months…
“Even Nanosys admits direct-view quantum dot displays are still several years away from mass production…. But 5-10 years from now we’ll almost certainly have options for QD [quantum dot] displays in our phones, probably in our living rooms, and possibly on our windshields and windows.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.