Solid Power, a Colorado-based battery developer, moved one step closer to producing solid-state batteries for electric vehicles on Monday. The company has completed an automated "EV cell pilot line" with the capacity to make around 15,000 cells per year, which will be used first by Solid Power and then by its OEM partners for testing.

Solid-state batteries differ from the lithium-ion batteries currently used in EVs in that they replace the liquid electrolyte with a solid layer between the anode and cathode. It's an attractive technology for multiple reasons: Solid-state cells should have a higher energy density, they should be able to charge more quickly, and they should be safer, as they're nonflammable (which should further reduce the pack density and weight, as it will need less-robust protection).

It's one of those technologies that to a very casual observer is perennially five years away, but in Europe there are already operational Mercedes-Benz eCitaro buses with solid-state packs.

See https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/06/solid-state-batteries-for-evs-move-a-step-closer-to-production/

#technology #EV #batteries #USA

By coming pre-loaded with Pop!_OS and its “Cosmic” desktop experience. This offers easy-access to tiling window features, thousands of Flatpak apps through the Pop Shop, and more frequent kernel and graphic driver updates than those running regular Ubuntu get.

Physically, the HP Dev One is based on the HP EliteBook 845 G8 but it’s not identical. This spin comes without Windows, lacks the premium branded speaker tech (which I often feel is a gimmick anyway), and —mercifully— has none of the extra “software” HP like to saddle their Windows laptops with.

Good to see more and more OEM computers being sold with Linux preinstalled.

See https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/06/hp-dev-one-linux-laptop-specs-price

#technology #Linux #opensource #HP

Yes I know browser based one's like Firefox also existed, but were shut down due to some or other criminal abuse. The Magic Wormhole protocol does use a Rendezvous Server, so a 3rd party service does need to be operating.

Just open Warp, select the file to “send”, and copy the shareable code it generates. The recipient just opens Warp, clicks “receive”, punches in the code and… et voila: digital transference through the binary ether.

The files are encrypted for transfer, and it will use a local network if that is possible. It is compatible with the Magic Wormhole CLI.

Seeing it is open source, it would be really handy if someone extended this to other platforms too.

See https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/05/warp-is-a-linux-file-transfer-app

#technology #linux #warp #filetransfer

Google has started rolling out the replacement for its Movies and TV app, Google TV, to iOS and Android smartphones.

Google TV is currently available to iOS users, while Android support is still expanding in the coming months.

The tech giant told 9to5Google that Google TV would soon be rolling out to Android devices in South Africa. Google’s support page indicates that the Smart TV version of the app is already available to South African users.

Google TV aggregates content from various streaming services — although it currently excludes Netflix — and allows users to build a centralised watchlist.

See https://mybroadband.co.za/news/broadcasting/447028-google-tv-launches-in-south-africa.html

#technology #southafrica #googletv #streaming

Gopher is a point-and-click internet protocol that predates Tim Berners-Lee's WorldWideWeb. Although the web has almost totally replaced it, Gopherspace still exists. The snag is that, just as modern web browsers are removing FTP support, they long ago got rid of Gopher support.

But all is not lost. Firefox users can re-enable it with a choice of extensions, including Overbite and Underbite. Chrome users could try Burrow. Rather than full gopher browsers, these direct Gopher links through public Gopher-to-Web proxies.

Saying that, though, there is even a modern dedicated Gopher browser. It's called Gophie, and as it's a Java app, it runs on all the main platforms. Also worth a look is Castor, a modern Rust-based client for Gopher, Gemini and Finger.

I forgot how fast pages could load when there are no adverts, scripts, banners, trackers, etc. I just look at a retro style ASCII BBS social site like https://tilde.club/ (running on https, but they also serve Gopher at gopher://tilde.club/ ).

I did not have luck though with the Chrome extension for Gopher, but running the Castor client did work fine.

See https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/23/the_return_of_the_gopher/

#technology #retro #gopher #BBS

Ever hear of Lotus 123? It is an old spreadsheet program that dominated the early PC market, taking the crown from incumbent Visicalc. Tavis Ormandy has managed to get the old software running natively under Linux — quite a feat for software that is around 40 years old and was meant for a different operating system. You can see the results in glorious green text on a black screen in the video below.

This really brings back memories of my first job in IT doing desktop support. We purchased and used a wordprocessor, spreadsheet, database app, etc all separately. They worked on ASCII based monochrome monitors before we had graphical interfaces with drop-down menus operated with a mouse. They were actually quicker to use with keyboard shortcuts, than trying to use a mouse (which only came later). The big problem though was as you switched packages there was no consistency in the use of keyboard shortcuts yet.

We used Samna and WordStar for early wordprocessing, and Lotus 123 was long used as a spreadsheet package. This also gave the ability to sort and calculate data, and create basic 'databases'. Then we all progressed to WordPerfect, which also migrated into an early graphical interface, and we saw office suites start to appear. And only then came Microsoft Word...

See https://hackaday.com/2022/05/23/lotus-123-for-linux-is-like-a-digital-treasure-hunt/

#technology #lotus123 #retro #spreadsheets

Sensity AI, a startup focused on tackling identity fraud, carried out a series of pretend attacks. Engineers scanned the image of someone from an ID card, and mapped their likeness onto another person's face. Sensity then tested whether they could breach live facial recognition systems by tricking them into believing the pretend attacker is a real user.

Sensity mentioned needing a specialised phone to hijack mobile cameras and injecting pre-made deepfake models in its report.

Security is always a moving target...

See https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/22/ai_in_brief/

#technology #security #deepfakes #facialrecognition

The lenses have microLED displays, smart sensors, and solid-state batteries similar to those found in pacemakers. The company claims to have a “feature-complete prototype” and are going to start testing, according to the BBC article. We imagine you can’t get much of a battery crammed into a contact lens, but presumably, that’s one of the things that makes it so difficult to develop this sort of tech.

Lots of practical issues to still sort out before anything like this goes mainstream, but good to see the research and design is still moving forward. It's biggest benefit (less obvious, less stuff hanging on your head, etc) is also its biggest drawback (eye comfort, battery life, resolution). Of course, costs are not even a point of discussion yet.

See https://hackaday.com/2022/05/22/smart-contact-lenses-put-you-up-close-to-the-screen/

#technology #AR #contactlenses #smartcontacts

The company’s first suborbital system is designed to test the technology, but Spinlaunch does plan on doing a larger orbital launcher in the future. Neither system can put loads into space on its own, but by propelling the rocket to over 6 times the speed of sound at launch, the need for a big rocket that burns vast quantities of fuel is eliminated. Instead, a Spinlaunch rocket can be quite small and still take its payload to space. This will lower both the monetary cost and the environmental costs of launching small spacecraft (like satellites) into space.

Yes, normal rocket launching can be pretty bad for the environment, and expensive, so this may fill an important niche going forward.

See https://cleantechnica.com/2022/05/20/spinlaunch-throws-a-camera-toward-space-with-electric-power/

#technology #environment #spinlaunch #satellites