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Tuesday, December 28th, 2021
| Time | Event |
| 1:25a | Virginia Family Gets Keys To Habitat For Humanity's First 3D-Printed Home in the US One Virginia family received the keys to their new 3D-printed home in time for Christmas. The home is Habitat for Humanity's first 3D-printed home in the nation, according to a Habitat news release. CNN reports: Janet V. Green, CEO of Habitat for Humanity Peninsula and Greater Williamsburg, told CNN it partnered with Alquist, a 3D printing company, earlier this year to begin the process. Alquist's crew printed the house. Janet V. Green, CEO of Habitat for Humanity Peninsula and Greater Williamsburg, told CNN it partnered with Alquist, a 3D printing company, earlier this year to begin the process. Alquist's crew printed the house. The technology allowed the home to be built in just 12 hours, which saves about four weeks of construction time for a typical home. The concrete used in the house's 3D construction has many long-term benefits, such as the ability to retain temperature and withstand natural disasters, like tornadoes and hurricanes. April Stringfield purchased the home through the Habitat Homebuyer Program. She will move in with her 13-year-old son just in time for the holidays. "My son and I are so thankful," Stringfield said in a live feed streamed on Habitat's Facebook page. "I always wanted to be a homeowner. It's like a dream come true." Stringfield's home also includes a personal 3D printer that will allow her to reprint anything she may need, "everything from electrical outlet to trim to cabinet knobs," Green told CNN. 
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
| 1:00p | Why the Air Force Wants To Put Lidar On Robot Dogs An anonymous reader quotes a report from Popular Science: Imagine being able to see the components of a potentially dangerous situation in live 3D and in fine detail without even having to survey the area,' says Brian Goddin, from the Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center public affairs, in a video produced by the military. [...] Putting lidar on drones and on ground robots gives the military a way to map the interior of a building with a machine. With that lidar data transmitted to the computers in a command center, or even just the tablet of an operator sitting outside the building, a human can see what the robot sees, and direct the robot accordingly. (In the civilian world, lidar sensors are commonly used on self-driving cars as one tool for the vehicles to perceive the world around them.) Goddin's presentation, released online December 9, 2021, shows lidar mounted on Spot, the Boston Dynamics dog-shaped robot. Ghost Robotics Q-UGV machines, also dog-shaped and sensor-rich, have been used to patrol the perimeter of Tyndall AFB, making Spot the second breed (or brand) of robot dog to serve the needs of the base. While all of this mapping at Tyndall is happening in the wake of Hurricane Michael, creating a virtual 3D model of the buildings as they stand can guide future repair. Such a virtual model is a useful tool for regular maintenance and repair, and it provides a record of a prior state should disaster strike again. Such techniques could also allow better investigations of failure after the fact. By comparing lidar scans of downed or wrecked craft to those before launch, and to surviving aircraft that made it back from a fight, the Air Force could understand how to better make more durable craft. Scanning a wrecked plane with lidar also lets rescue workers and recovery teams know if and how they should act to save pilots and passengers, suggested Javier Rodriguez, a technician stationed at Tyndall.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
| 2:42p | Google is Just Letting the Pixelbook Rot An anonymous reader shares a report: Google has a tendency to show up, innovate, and then abandon its products/services rather quickly. There's an entire site, Killed by Google, that's dedicated to documenting all of Google's dead projects. Even Stadia, Google's once-promising cloud gaming service, could be heading to the graveyard, after years of failing to measure up to Microsoft's xCloud and Nvidia's GeForce Now. But software is one thing. Hardware is another, and Google has let its premiere Chromebook, the Pixelbook, rot without a hardware refresh since 2019's Pixelbook Go. Not counting the original Cr-48 reference design Chromebook, Google has released a total of four Chrome OS-powered laptops. There was the original 2013 Chromebook Pixel and 2015 Pixel 2 (not to be confused with the phones that are named Pixel). Then the 2-in-1 Pixelbook in 2017, and in 2019, the Pixelbook Go. The pattern for a refresh seemed to be every two years. This year's Pixel 6 event came and went with no word of a new Pixelbook. And according to a recent comment made at Qualcomm's conference by Chrys Tsolaki, Google's retail partner manager for Chromebooks, there won't be a Pixelbook in 2022, either.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
| 11:20p | 13 Battery Gigafactories Are Coming To the US By 2025 schwit1 shares a report from Electrek: There are 13 new battery cell gigafactories coming online in the US by 2025, according to the Department of Energy. These factories are ushering in a new era of battery production in the US. [...] Now the Department of Energy has issued a report listing all the battery factory projects in the US: "In addition to electric vehicle battery plants that are already in operation in the United States, 13 additional plants have been announced and are expected to be operational within the next 5 years. Of the 13 plants that are planned, eight are joint ventures between automakers and battery manufacturers. Many of these new plants will be located in the Southeast or Midwest." The list, published by the Department of Energy last week (available in full via Electrek), includes factories from Ford, SK Innovation, General Motors and LG Energy Solution, as well as one from Toyota and Volkswagen. "It looks like they missed a few too," adds Electrek. "For example, Tesla is currently deploying battery cell production capacity at its Gigafactory Texas in Austin. It could become one of the biggest battery cell factories in the world, with a planned capacity of over 100 GWh."
Read more of this story at Slashdot. |
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