Looking at its achievements over the past decade, nobody would doubt China is aiming to win the new space race. Not only has it been the only country to land on the Moon in about 40 years, and the first to soft land on its far side, it has also planted a flag on lunar soil and brought samples back to…
Tag: decade
Researchers demonstrate the potential of a new quantum material for creating two spintronic technologies
Over the past decade or so, physicists and engineers have been trying to identify new materials that could enable the development of electronic devices that are faster, smaller and more robust. This has become increasingly crucial, as existing technologies are made of materials that are gradually approaching their physical limits. …
The Problems of Touchscreens In the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
Long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo quotes a recent blog post from BoingBoing: The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is the most crammed-with-digital-tech fighter jet in history, the product of a multi-decade, trillion-dollar design process that has been famously messy. But the jet is out there, and pilots are flying it. One big design shift with the F-35 is that it removes many of…
The US Government’s Entire 645,000-Vehicle Fleet Will Go All-Electric
Jalopnik reports:
The United States government operates a fleet of about 645,000 vehicles, from mail delivery trucks to military vehicles and passenger cars. On Monday, President Joe Biden announced that his administration intends to replace them all with American-made, electric alternatives… In 2015, the government operated 357,610 gasoline vehicles and 3,896 electric ones; in 2019, those numbers grew to 368,807 and 4,475,…
After SolarWinds Breach, Lawmakers Ask NSA for Help in Cracking Juniper Cold Case
As the U.S. investigation into the SolarWinds hacking campaign grinds on, lawmakers are demanding answers from the National Security Agency about another troubling supply chain breach that was disclosed five years ago. From a report: A group of lawmakers led by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., are asking the NSA what steps it took to secure defense networks following a years-old breach…
It’s A Sin review: A series that will tug on your heartstrings
Russel T Davies’s mini series It’s A Sin serves as the perfect snapshot into London’s gay scene in the 1980s, while exposing the harsh realities of the decade’s rising AIDS epidemic Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2266281-its-a-sin-review-a-series-that-will-tug-on-your-heartstrings/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Carmakers Face $61 Billion Sales Hit From Pandemic Chip Shortage
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: When the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami ravaged Japan in 2011, ocean water flooded factories owned byRenesas Electronics Corp.Production at the swamped facilities ground to a halt — a major hit for Renesas, of course, but also a devastating blow to the Japanese car industry, which depended on Renesas for semiconductors. Lacking chips for…
Our world is losing ice at a record rate
The rate at which ice is disappearing across the planet has been speeding up, with 65% since the 1990s, a survey of global ice loss using European Space Agency satellite data reveals. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/esa-satellites-show-record-rate-ice-loss…
BP Slashes Its Oil Exploration Team by 85%, Starts Switching to Renewables
Reuters reports on big changes at BP (the company formerly known as British Petroleum):
Its geologists, engineers and scientists have been cut to less than 100 from a peak of more than 700 a few years ago, company sources told Reuters, part of a climate change-driven overhaul triggered last year by CEO Bernard Looney. “The winds have turned very chilly in the…
10 Years After Its Discontinuation, Some Fans Still Love Microsoft’s Zune Mp3 Player
“It was weird to own a Zune in 2005,” remembers a new article in the Verge. “It is even weirder to own a Zune in 2021 — let alone 16 of them. And yet, 27-year-old Conner Woods proudly shows off his lineup on a kitchen table.”
They come in all different colors, shapes, and sizes, and each can be identified by that…