It looks like we won’t have Cruise to kick around in this space anymore with the news that General Motors is pulling the plug on its woe-beset robotaxi project. Cruise, which GM acquired in 2016, fielded autonomous vehicles in various test markets, but the fleet racked up enough high-profile mishaps (first item) for California regulators to shut down test programs in the state last year. The inevitable layoffs ensued, and GM is now killing off its efforts to build robotaxis to concentrate on incorporating the Cruise technology into its “Super Cruise” suite of driver-assistance features for its full line of cars and trucks. We feel like this might be a tacit admission that surmounting the problems of fully autonomous driving is just too hard a nut to crack profitably with current technology, since Super Cruise uses eye-tracking cameras to make sure the driver is paying attention to the road ahead when automation features are engaged. Basically, GM is admitting there still needs to be meat in the seat, at least for now.
Speaking of accidents, the results of the first aircraft accident investigation on another world were released this week, and there were a few surprises. Ingenuity, the little helicopter that hitched a ride to Mars in the belly of the Perseverance rover in 2021, surpassed all expectations by completing 71 flights successfully and becoming an integral part of the search for ancient life on Mars. But flight 72 proved to be a bridge too far and ended with a hard landing that terminally damaged its rotor system. At the time it was speculated that the relatively bland terrain it was flying over at the time of the accident was the root cause. This was confirmed by analysis of the flight logs, but the degree to which the flight computer’s down-looking navigation camera was confused by the featureless dunes is new information. As for why the rotor blades broke, it doesn’t appear that it was because they impacted the surface. Rather, as Scott Manley points out, the blades appear to have broken at their weakest point due to extreme flexing induced by the high vertical speed while touching down on a slope, which caused one set of legs to hit the surface before the others.
Also roughly in the realm of space-based failures comes the story of a hapless senior citizen in New York who has been issued thousands of dollars in traffic tickets because of her love for Star Trek. Years ago, Long Island resident Beda Koorey got a New York vanity license plate for her car emblazoned with “NCC-1701,” the registration number of the USS Enterprise. She turned in those plates years ago when she gave up driving, but in the meantime, novelty NCC-1701 plates began popping up on Amazon and other sites. They were clearly not intended to be used on cars, but that didn’t stop some people from putting them on over their real plates in an attempt to defeat traffic cameras. It worked, at least from their point of view, since it left poor Beda with a collection of tickets for speeding and red light violations from as far away as Chicago. She even got a ticket for a violation committed by a motorcycle with a phony plate, which you think would not map to the registration for an automobile, but there you go. We always knew it was hard to be a Trekkie, especially back in the ’70s, but at least it never cost us much money. It did cost us a lot of dates, though.
We featured plenty of stories of start-up tech companies with the next must-have IoT device that fold up shop after a few years and abandon their users by effectively bricking their widgets. Heck, we’ve even suffered that fate ourselves; curse you, Logitech, for killing the SqueezeBox. However, one company recently took IoT bricking to a new low by ending support for a line of AI-powered companion bots for kids. The company was called Embodied, and they hawked $800 AI bots for kids called Moxie, with a cute face and a huggable form factor that kids couldn’t help falling in love with. Embodied couldn’t make a go of it financially and since Moxie uses a cloud-based LLM to interact with kids, the bots are now bricked. This leaves parents who invested in these devices with the quandary of having to explain to young kids that their robot pal is dead. Some of the TikToks of parents breaking the news are heartbreaking, and we can’t help but think that this is a perfect opportunity for someone in our community to reverse-engineer these things and bring them back to life.
And finally, the burning of the Yule Log is an ancient tradition, one that reminds us of the time our grandfather brought an entire telephone pole that had washed up on the beach home and burned it for days on end, feeding it slowly into the fireplace in the living room through the open front door. Good times. Not everyone is blessed with a fireplace in their abode, though, which has given rise to the popularity of video Yule Logs that you can just play on your TV. And now NASA is in on the action with an eight-hour 4K video of the SLS main engines and boosters. Framed by a lovely stone fireplace and replete with crackling wood sound effects over the subdued roar of the four RS-25 engines and twin solid-fuel boosters, it’ll make a nice addition to your holiday festivities. Although given that NASA just announced that the next Artemis missions are delayed until at least 2026, we’re not sure that it’s a great idea to show a rocket that never lifts off. You’ll also want to be careful that the neighbors don’t see the action.
This articles is written by : Fady Askharoun Samy Askharoun
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