Monthly Archives: September 2022

Is the Mercedes EQS the car of the future? Photo: Mercedes-Benz

Its all change in the car world these days. Gas-powered models are being shown the door while sleek, battery-powered models packed full of tech are being ushered in. And all this is happening while automakers are trying to decide what a modern car looks like and how it should act in 2022.

And this got us thinking. Of all the new models released in recent years, do any of them feel truly modern and like the cars we were promised wed be driving by the time we reached the 2020s? So today, we want to uncover the most futuristic cars you can buy right now.

Futuristic can mean a lot of things when it comes to cars. It could be as simple as a sleek, minimalist style that looks straight out of a sci-fi epic. Or, it could be all about the futuristic tech crammed into the cabin, as long as it all works. Or, there could be a powertrain that you think really is the basis of our automotive future.

Whatever the reasoning and whatever the car, we want to hear about it.

In terms of the cars that offer a tangible taste of a future predicted by the movies, I think theres no better pick than the Mercedes EQS Sedan. This porpoise-like EV has that orb-like form that was promised in films like Wall-E, yet its cabin is packed with the soft glow of an inordinate amount of touch screens.

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And while an argument could be made for Tesla a few years back, the companys impressive electric range is already being matched by other automakers. And, if you think its self-driving capabilities make up for that, then please refer to the earlier stipulation that any futuristic tech youre considering must actually work.

So, with all that in mind, why dont you make like a tree and head straight to the comments section to let us know your picks for the most futuristic cars on sale right now. Well round up some of the top responses in a slideshow next week.

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Whats the Most Futuristic Car on Sale Right Now? - Jalopnik

Why so serious?Jokerfied

The villainous Joker, from the world of "Batman," has been brought to life on screen in numerous memorable performances: Jack Nicholson in "Batman" (1989), Heath Ledger in "The Dark Knight" (2008) and even Juaquin Phoenix "Joker" (2019.)

One casting we never got to see was famed "Saturday Night Live" cast member Chris Farley as the iconic bad guy, since he tragically passed away in 1997. But thanks to the magic of text-to-image artificial intelligence Midjourney, now we can see what might have been:

The images are clearly evocative, rendering Farley's arresting countenance in the ominous face paint and purple-suited sleaze of the noted Batman nemesis, and they've been reverberating across the web for several days now. It's canny casting concept, not the least because Farley, like Ledger, died young under tragic circumstances.

But the shots also invoke philosophical questions with which the world is only starting to grapple in the age of advanced and increasingly democratized AI-powered creativity tools. After all, it's one thing to whip together a few images of a might-have-been casting decision, but we're rapidly entering a period in which machine learning might feasibly allow fans to recast favorite films using deepfakes, or even leverage similar software to create entirely movies on their own.

Just yesterday, for instance, we heard about a guy who's painstakingly using AI tech to generate an entire sci-fi movie. For now, the outputs are spooky but not quite up to par. It's provocative, though, to imagine a day when a long-dead actor could be inserted into a movie made after he passed away or even a new one, sprung from fans' imaginations and the startling creative potential of AI.

More on killer clowns: Facial Recognition Tech Is No Match for Juggalo Makeup

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Here's How It'd Look If Chris Farley Played the Joker, According to AI - Futurism

Sandbox VR, a company responsible for opening 25 virtually reality locations around theUnited States, Canada, Asia and Europe, has recently announced the opening of its newest VR hub in Denver.

"Sandbox VRs socially immersive gaming experience combines full-body motion capture and high-quality haptics to provide unprecedented realism and complete immersion thats not possible with home VR systems or other location-based VR venues, taking group VirtualReality gameplay and competitive socializing to the next level," a news release said.

The Denver Sandbox VR, to be located at the Park Meadow Mall, will include five gaming rooms, where groups of six at a time can explore virtual worlds together and play games.

Upon arrival, guests will receivea VR headset, a haptic vest, a backpack, and motion sensors on their wrists and ankles. These will help them physically and visually interact with the virtual world of theirchoosing. So far, the company has announced six VR storylines that players can immerse themselves in, including a zombie apocalypse, gladiator battles, a supernatural encounter, an underwater adventure, a battle against androids, and a Star Trek-themed mission.

"Players experience heart-pounding, exhilarating, and unforgettably immersive gameplay when they fend off zombie hordes, enter a world of swashbuckling adventure, soar into the clouds in a space elevator or compete against one another in a futuristic combat arena the true future of immersive entertainment," the release said.

The location will officially open to the public on September 9. For more information, visit the Sandbox VR websitehere.

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Futuristic virtual reality experience opens in Colorado - Out There Colorado

According to a CNBC investigation, retail giant Amazon which made solar power a key pillar of its planto reach zero emissions by 2040 secretly switched off all rooftop warehouse solar panels amid multiple fires and safety concerns.

"Out of an abundance of caution, following a small number of isolated incidents with onsite solar systems owned and operated by third parties, Amazon proactively powered off our onsite solar installations in North America, and took immediate steps to re-inspect each installation by a leading solar technical expert firm," an Amazon spokesperson conceded to CNBC in a statement.

The issue here isn't necessarily that Amazon clearly had some faulty tech on their hands. And if equipment is catching fire and threatening employee safety as AmazonBasics products have done before it should definitely be powered down. But the company failed to make the malfunctions and the subsequent shut-downs known to the public, which means that the company was apparently withholding info about both employee safety andits environmental efforts and impact.

Internal documents obtained by CNBC showed that between April 2020 and June 2021, there were at least six separate incidents of rooftop solar panels either catching fire or suffering electrical explosions. Forty-seven North American Amazon warehouses had these panels installed, meaning the dangerous malfunctions impacted roughly 12.7 percent of all such sites.

"The rate of dangerous incidents is unacceptable," an Amazon employee reportedly wrote in one internal report obtained by CNBC, "and above industry averages."

But these incidents and the following string of shutdowns and evaluations remained undisclosed, even though the Amazon's 2021 sustainability report released long after those shutdowns and evaluations were underway praised itself for its commitment to solar energy, domestically and beyond US borders.

"Many of our fulfillment facilities throughout the US, Europe, and India are powered by on-site solar," reads the 2021 report, "where a rooftop installation can power up to 80 percent of the facility's energy use."

According to CNBC, the documents also detailed extensive and frankly, alarming issues with the thousands of panels, as discovered by the company's third-party inspector.

"Over the past five years," read one internal document, blaming outside parties for Amazon's failures, "solar malfunctions have been caused by improper installation techniques, improper commissioning of a new system, inadequate system maintenance and equipment malfunction."

Amazon is no stranger to workplace dangers, nor is it exactly a climate hero. But this seems especially egregious. Maybe new solar panels are a better use for all that Blue Origin money, hm?

READ MORE:Amazon took all U.S. solar rooftops offline last year after flurry of fires, electrical explosions[CNBC]

More on bad Amazon behavior: Jeff Bezos Says the FTC Is Being Vewy Vewy Mean

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Amazon Secretly Shut Down All Its Solar Rooftops After They Started Catching Fire - Futurism

This could be big.Over and Over

The secret of immortality may be contained within a jellyfish smaller than a human fingernail, so scientists have spent the last several decades trying to unlock the secrets ofTurritopsis dohrnii, more commonlycalled the immortal jellyfish.

On Monday, researchers from the Universidad de Oviedo in Spain published new research in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that just may help crack that mystery. Long story short, the immortal jellyfish appear to have twice as many copies of the genes associated with repair and protection than its related but mortal cousin, the crimson jellyfish known as Turritopsis rubra.

"While aging affects most living organisms, the hydrozoanTurritopsis dohrnii is the only species able to rejuvenate repeatedly after sexual reproduction, becoming biologically immortal," the authors wrote in the paper. "We have identified variants and expansions of genes associated with replication, DNA repair, telomere maintenance, redox environment, stem cell population, and intercellular communication."

DNA repair and telomeres are particularly important to the critter. When times are tough or the jelly is starving, it re-absorbs its own tentacles and sinks to the seafloor, where it becomes a baby polyp once more and spouts off more jellies that will eventually mature into medusae.

The jelly's telomeres act like little DNA hard hats, protecting the ends of chromosomal strands as they reproduce. Normally, telomeres get shorter and are "used up" during this process, but that isn't the case with Turritopsis dohrnii.

It's easy to envy the immortal jellyfish, but it's equally important to be careful what you wish for. We still don't know how Turritopsis dohrniiedits its cells so easily, and on a semantic and philosophical level, it's not clear whether the resulting medusae are the same individual or not.

Still, researchers have cause to be excited one of the best explanatory videos on the web about this special jelly describes how learning how to replace brain cells, for instance, could unlock new treatments for diseases that humans haven't yet been able to treat, like Parkinson's or Alzheimer's.

In a statement, study author and Universidad de Oviedo professor confirmed the team hopes to find out how to help humans live longer.

"From this knowledge we hope to find better answers to the many diseases associated with aging that overwhelm us today," Carlos Lpez-Otn said.

More on medical needs: Illegal Online Pharmacies for Contraceptives Are Booming in Post-Roe America

More:
Scientists Say They Found the Genes That Makes Immortal Jellyfish Immortal - Futurism

"I went to my management and said, 'I'm not bringing it back. It stays here.'"Behemoth on Wheels

The launch of NASAs Artemis 1 mission has been delay to September 3,or perhaps further.It's an anticlimactic setback for all involved, but theres one man whos particularly aggrieved by the situation: John Giles, the crawler overseer.

The crawlers, as they're called, are NASA's gargantuan vehicles 131 feet long and 114 feet wide and supported by suitably massive treads that move the agency's colossally heavy spacecraft aroundat the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Now, if the September 3 launch doesnt work out, the Space Launch System (SLS) launching the mission will need to be hauled back to its Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) for deeper diagnosis and repairs something Giles wants to avoid at all costs.

"I jokingly told them when we went to the pad and dropped it off this time, I went to my management and said, 'I'm not bringing it back. It stays here,'" Giles said in an interview with Mashable before the launch, originally scheduled for Monday, was delayed the first time. "'You gotta launch it because I'm not gonna take it back to the VAB.'"

Giles hilariously open chagrin is not unwarranted. Moving this marvel of engineering, which at the size of a skyscraper weighs millions of pounds and is precariously balanced atop an unwieldy vehicle, is monumentally stressful and boring. The crawler lumbers along at a literally sleep-inducing pace of less than one mile per hour, with drivers switching out along the way so none of them fall victim to its drowsy effects. All in all, it's an eight hour expedition from the hangar to the launchpad or vice versa.

"You get tired,"Giles toldMashable. "You start to see things."

Giles weary annoyance is so palpable, it may be enough to will this launch into actually happening. After all, who would want to draw the ire of the all important crawler overseer?

And Giles is already pretty worn and weary. The treads, known as "shoes," are a major point of concern for him, as each journey wears them thinner and thinner.

"Every roll stresses me because of the amount of weight and the amount of value of what we're carrying," Giles said in the Mashable interview.

NASA definitely doesn't want to piss this guy off any further.

More on NASA: James Webb Just Took Its First Direct Image of an Exoplanet

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Guy Who Has to Move NASA Moon Rocket Back to Hangar Very Annoyed - Futurism

"An avalanche-like process of equipment failure is beginning, cracks are appearing."This Old House

The newly appointed head of Roscosmos, Russia's space agency, says the International Space Station is turning into a hunk of junk.

"Technically, the ISS has exceeded all its warranty periods. This is dangerous," Yuri Borisov told Reuters. "An avalanche-like process of equipment failure is beginning, cracks are appearing."

In July, Russia announced more details about its plans to build a new space station of its own, after announcing the country would discontinue cooperation aboard the ISS at some point after 2024.

Despite worsening political relations between the US and Russia, the ISS long functioned as a sort of haven for international cooperation. Now, that's poised to end as Russia looks to more "friendly" countries to collaborate with, according to Reuters.

Borisov said that Russia is looking for strong allies, particularly in China. He claims that's because Western sanctions against Russia piled on top of other disappointments, like the European Space Agency's choice to stop working the ExoMars rover with Russia after it invaded Ukraine.

"An enormous amount of effort and huge sums of money were spent on that... but politics intervened, and what is the result? It shouldn't be like this, it's wrong," Borisov told the outlet.

It's hard to feel sympathetic toward a space agency whose previous head threatened to smash Europe and the US with bits of a blown-up ISS, and it's even harder to know if Borisov is telling the truth about the space station's supposed dilapidation.

It seems that complications born of humanity's Earth-bound politics are still a threat, even off-planet.

More on off-world news: Commander of First private SpaceX Flight to ISS Reveals Worst Part of Journey

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Russia Says the International Space Station Is a Dangerous, Decrepit Mess - Futurism

Neodash is a fresh Native Linux racing game that combines futuristic bright neon visuals with crazy-fast drifting. What you get is something that clearly resembles the awesome racing-platformer Distance, but pumped up on some serious steroids and a little Trackmania too even.

Honestly, this looks absolutely awesome. Screenshots don't do it justice, have a look at the trailer below.

"Define your own path and survive until you reach the end that lies ahead of you by swerving, drifting and flying across traps and obstacles while avoiding the abyss. But there's a catch: the world is disintegrating at your heels; better go fast, or you might not make it.

Neodash plunges you in a unique sci-fi atmosphere that is brought to life by music: the environment reacts to the beat in different ways, creating a thrilling and immersive audio-visual experience."

Game Features:

Available to buy on Steam.

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Futuristic drift-racer Neodash is out now on Steam and looks wild - GamingOnLinux