Pavel Varenka The world has slowly but surely moved into a new year and a new decade, and even though the previous year was not very successful and in many ways affected all of humanity for a very long time, it does not mean that the technological world has rested on its laurels. On the contrary, analysts do not expect the situation to change soon, which means that the vast majority of companies are focusing on digitalization, car companies are increasingly anxiously gravitating towards electric cars, and food delivery without the need for a driver to be present is not a future utopia, but an everyday reality. So let's take a look at some of the groundbreaking innovations that rocked the technology world over Christmas and New Year's Eve.
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Vratislav Holub Elon Musk did not sleep and boasted of breathtaking plans
When it comes to deep space and the company SpaceX, it almost seems that scientists led by Elon Musk did not take a break even over Christmas. After all, the tech world is constantly changing, and the CEO of the space giant obviously wants to be ahead of everything. This is also evidenced by the megalomaniac plans for the huge Starship, which premiered in December. Although it exploded just after landing, which many might consider a failure, it is quite the opposite. The rocket completed the high-altitude flight without the slightest problem, and as if that wasn't enough, Elon Musk even came up with an idea to make the whole process more efficient. And that was before Starship-directed spaceflight became routine.
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Space transport is supposed to work as fast as possible, similar to terrestrial transport, which is what SpaceX is looking at. For this reason as well, the visionary came up with an idea that could really shake the foundations of the current standard procedure. The special Super Heavy module, which serves as a rocket booster, can return to Earth by itself, which is nothing new, but until now there has been some difficulty with effective capture. Fortunately, Elon Musk came up with a solution, namely to use a special robotic arm that would free the booster from the sky just before landing and prepare it for the next flight. And in less than an hour.
Accurate Super Heavy Descent profile? pic.twitter.com/MxIJ0zLzKn
— ErcX (@ErcXspace) December 30, 2020
The state of Massachusetts shines a light on internal combustion engines. It will ban them in 2035
Most experts say that the future belongs to electric cars, and there is no doubt that it is. In any case, there are still plenty of people interested in classic internal combustion engines, against which both the European Union and the rest of the civilized world have expressed displeasure. Even in the relatively conservative United States, there are voices in this regard calling for a definitive ban on non-environmental combustion engines and the establishment of an entirely new form of transportation. And as it seems, some statesmen and politicians have taken this motto and come to the conclusion that it is necessary to draw a thick line behind the era of classic cars and step towards the future.
A shining example is the state of Massachusetts, which came up with the most difficult and non-standard solution, namely to ban the sale of any combustion engines and classic cars in 2035. After all, state officials some time ago published a special manifesto discussing carbon neutrality and an ambitious plan to rid the country of harmful gases. It is for this reason that politicians have moved to this not very popular step, which will stop combustion engines from tipping and the only ones who will be able to sell standard cars will be dealers with used vehicles. After California, Massachusetts thus officially becomes the second state to follow this path.
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Nuro will be the first in California to deliver food using only self-driving vehicles
Autonomous vehicles are talked about quite often, even in the world's biggest payers and most watched TV channels. After all, Uber is planning robot taxis, Tesla is currently working on driverless software, and Apple is planning to introduce the first ever autonomous vehicle in 2024, at the earliest. However, the overall concept often lacks food deliveries, which are the order of the day these days and their number has jumped by hundreds and thousands of percent in the past year alone. So the Nuro company decided to take advantage of this hole in the market and rushed to come up with a solution - autonomous distribution in a special vehicle that would be fully automated and would not require any workers.
It should be noted that Nuro already tested these vehicles at the beginning of last year, however, only now has it received official permission, which entitles it to be the first to use this futuristic method. Of course, this step does not create a completely new delivery service that competes with established services, however, company representatives have expressed themselves in the sense that they will connect with the most suitable partner and try to expand this form of delivery as much as possible, in most medium-sized cities, where there is a huge demand for a similar service inquiry. In any case, other states can be expected to follow quickly.
What exactly does "end of ends" mean in this context?
"The special Super Heavy module, which serves as a rocket booster, can return to Earth by itself, which is nothing new, but until now there has been some difficulty with effective capture." - This is a rather misleading statement. The Super Heavy has not yet flown and is in the prototype construction phase. However, return and automatic landing are expected.
The future does not yet belong to electric cars. At least not until their charging is sorted out. It is impossible for the current electrical infrastructure to be able to withstand the onslaught that would be developed overnight by charging the cars of the residents of the entire state. Despite the fact that not everyone has access to a garage or a private charging station - only people with their own land do. And people probably won't pull out extension cords in the parking lot. And we also have an ecological point of view. Although an electric car drives with zero local emissions, 1. it is important to realize how many emissions are produced during the production of batteries for an electric car - many times more than during the production of conventional cars. And the subsequent disposal of batteries is not very "eco" either. And 2. where the electricity is produced. The share of solar and wind energy in the total mix of electricity production is really minimal. That's why I'm annoyed by these alibi attitudes, which, of course, see the future only in electric cars, but they don't want to see the problems that such cars bring with them in all the enthusiasm for Tesla. The share of car traffic in total emissions is minimal, and more serious environmental damage should be addressed.