Greetings! The New Year holidays significantly reduced the news agenda of technology and gadgets, so the issue turned out to be a little shorter than usual. However, there is something to talk about. Elon Musk again clarifies the timing of the introduction of full self-control for Tesla cars, Chinese brands show off the arms and legs of robotic vacuum cleaners, generative AI is picking up bank clerks, and Apple denies wiretapping through Siri, while simultaneously paying compensation as part of a pre-trial settlement, quantum computers will be put in quantum refrigerators , the US space expansion is hampered by a lack of spaceports, ultra-precise watches have been made mobile, and LETI presented an AI robot that can decorate Christmas trees. Below – about everything in more detail.
Table of Contents
Fully autonomous Tesla this year
Elon Musk announced that the company has begun internal testing of Full Self Driving (FSD). Company employees are conducting tests in an uncontrolled manner, but it is not specified whether this is being done on public roads or whether the company has launched tests on the territory of its own enterprises. Given the scale of the Gigafactory’s production facilities in Texas, this site could well be used to conduct such testing. It is known that Tesla does not yet have permission to test unmanned vehicles in fully automatic mode, so a person must be behind the wheel. Tesla’s competitors no longer have such restrictions: Waymo (owned by Google), as well as Cruise, Motional, AVRide and ADMT, have now received such permission. However, Elon Musk is confident that before the end of this year the first Tesla FSDs will be able to hit the roads and start working, for example, in taxis.
The US doesn’t have enough spaceports
The Wall Street Journal reports that a new type of traffic congestion has emerged in the United States. Only this time it is not connected with traffic congestion, but with an excess of people wishing to conduct space launches. Last year, the United States became the absolute leader in the number of space launches, many times ahead of all other countries. SpaceX alone recorded 134 launches excluding tests. And all of this was largely carried out at just three spaceports in Florida and California, which puts a lot of strain on the infrastructure. And if the start is postponed due to weather conditions, the entire queue is moved. Which, in turn, hits small companies, for which such shifts are especially sensitive. At the same time, only one new spaceport is expected to be commissioned in 2025, in Kodiak in Alaska. It is awaiting certification from NASA for 25 launches per year. That is, most likely, the situation in the United States will continue in that not all launches will be carried out, and some companies will be forced to transfer them to foreign spaceports. This is the unexpected side of the boom in commercial space exploration.
Armed robot vacuum cleaners
This year’s CES exhibition was not very impressive with new products, but Chinese developers of robotic vacuum cleaners used it to show off their new creations that change the already familiar appearance of this type of household appliance. Brands Dreame and Roborock demonstrated robotic vacuum cleaners with arms and legs. Additional limbs are needed in one case in order to get where the body cannot penetrate, and remove obstacles from its path in the form of, for example, thrown socks. The presence of “legs” allows us to solve the problem of the existence of robots in three-dimensional space. Steps and high thresholds will no longer create an insurmountable obstacle for such a robot. True, for now we are talking about the smallest ones – up to 6 cm in height, so the robot will not be able to move from floor to floor in the house. The situation with lifted objects is also not ideal – up to 300-500 grams, or a maximum of size 42 boots. On the other hand, these are the first prototypes, more technology demonstrators than real gadgets. But enthusiasts will already be able to purchase them in the new year. And then, you see, more advanced versions will be shown at CES 2026. And in ten years, the robot vacuum cleaner will already be a full-fledged android.
Apple doesn’t listen via Siri
Apple regularly finds itself embroiled in various scandals related to privacy issues. Although, by and large, the problem of collecting audio information by voice assistants is not unique to this company. So posting a long statement about Siri not eavesdropping on users is notable not for the fact of its appearance, but for how strange the situation around its appearance turned out to be. The fact is that, as The Verge journalists dug up, the refutation appeared a week after, as part of the settlement of the legal dispute, Apple agreed to pay $95 million to individuals who filed a lawsuit against it alleging wiretapping through Siri. At first glance it is absurd, but if you carefully read what Apple representatives say, then everything will fall into place. Siri does listen to your conversations, but these recordings are not used to create a user profile, they are always anonymized and are never shared with third parties. But the fact that became public back in 2019 that conversations recorded by Siri can be listened to by Apple employees is actually tacitly confirmed. In fact, $95 million was paid precisely for this. On the other hand, how else do you imagine training voice assistants?
Quantum refrigerator for a quantum computer
A quantum computer works better the lower the temperature, which means it needs to be constantly cooled. At the same time, like any other type of computer, a quantum computer produces thermal energy during its operation, which could potentially be used for cooling work. This is exactly what scientists from the Swedish Chalmers Technical University reasoned, and then moved on to experiments. As a result, they created an automated system of two superconducting qubits, multi-level quantum memory cells connected by a system of waveguides, with the help of which energy is removed and directed to cool the neighboring, third memory cell, which is directly involved in calculations. The bonus is zeroing the cells, resetting the qubits to the zero state after calculations. Moreover, with a probability of 99.97%, which is higher than 99.8-99.92% for currently available systems. And the cooling efficiency turned out to be even higher. The scheme tested by scientists gives a temperature of about 23.5 millikelvin (minus 273.1265 degrees Celsius), which is twice as good as the results of industrial refrigeration units used in existing quantum computers. The degree of readiness for the implementation of such a scheme has not been reported, but its use potentially promises significant energy savings.
Generative AI will eliminate bank clerks
The latest news about who else may be left without work due to the introduction of AI. Bloomberg analysts predict a significant impact of generative artificial intelligence on the banking industry. According to their calculations, significant changes may occur in this area over the next three to five years, which will lead to a reduction in employment and the layoff of up to 200 thousand employees. Positions associated with routine work and repetitive tasks will be at risk of being laid off. The total reduction could reach up to 10% of the workforce. Moreover, such cuts will benefit the banking sector and even lead to increased profitability in it. Bank profits over the horizon of three to five years may increase by 12% -17%. Increased profitability will be facilitated by increased operational efficiency and increased labor productivity. In this sector, it is expected that the use of generative artificial intelligence can improve productivity by 5% or more.
Ultra-precise mobile watches
Sometimes the news is interesting, but presented in a very strange context. For example, the South China Morning Post reported that Chinese scientists have invented a clock that will change the course of military operations. It is quite difficult to understand why exactly the fighting took place, because the point is that scientists were able to develop a working prototype of an atomic clock suitable for transportation under normal conditions. Of course, there is a lot of military equipment that requires data synchronization at a level of up to one quadrillionth of a second, but there is no less civilian equipment and equipment for scientific research that require the same accuracy. Or rather, even more. So the cesium atomic fountain clock NIM-TF3 from the National Institute of Metrology of the People’s Republic of China, although created by order of the military, can be used in all sectors of the national economy. The fundamental difference from others is their relative compactness (about 1.5 meters in height) and resistance to vibrations, described as the ability to be transported in a truck on a bumpy road. Other models either have less accuracy or require being in a room protected from environmental influences.
Robot for decorating Christmas trees
The latest news, of course, should have been included in the New Year’s issue, but purely chronologically it did not have time. A team of specialists and students from the St. Petersburg State Electrotechnical University “LETI” created a robot that can decorate a New Year tree. And completely without human help. Machine vision plus a neural network plus a high-precision manipulator give the robot the ability to completely independently cope with all the tasks required to decorate the Christmas tree for the New Year. Of course, from an aesthetic point of view, his choice is far from optimal, but the system of orientation in space and the manipulator, which allows you to operate with such fragile things as Christmas tree decorations, with precision sufficient for attaching them to flexible and complex Christmas tree branches, looks not at all a New Year’s pampering. Taking into account the statement that the pseudo-operating system ROS and algorithms can be scaled to any suitable type of robot, the work of the team of teachers and students of LETI is not just fun, but a very useful thing for industry. But for the New Year, of course, you can decorate the Christmas tree with a robot. Well, or pine.
Source: mobile-review.com
