Skoda has developed new technology it believes will make car mechanics’ lives easier – or possible make them redundant entirely.
The Czech brand – which sits under VW Group’s ownership – says it has completed successful trials of a smartphone app that can listen to any thuds, bangs or clatter produced by a vehicle and diagnose the problem from the sound alone.
Called the Skoda Sound Analyser, the manufacturer says it has a 90 per cent success rate of identifying issues with cars correctly.
WASHINGTON — NASA is delaying the launch of the first operational SpaceX commercial crew mission to the first half of November to provide more time to review a problem during a recent Falcon 9 launch attempt.
NASA announced Oct. 10 the Crew-1 mission, which was scheduled to launch on a Falcon 9 in the early morning hours of Oct. 31 from the Kennedy Space Center, will now launch no earlier than early to mid-November.
The delay, the agency said, will provide more time for SpaceX “to complete hardware testing and data reviews as the company evaluates off-nominal behavior of Falcon 9 first stage engine gas generators observed during a recent non-NASA mission launch attempt.” NASA did not identify the specific launch attempt in question, but an Oct. 2 launch of a Falcon 9 carrying a GPS 3 satellite was scrubbed just two seconds before liftoff because of SpaceX Chief Executive
The Mauritius Police Force Press Conference on 7 October 2020 in capital city Port Louis that … [+] revealed the Coastguard’s messages were not heard on the Wakashio’s VDR, but did not reveal whether the crew were distracted with an engine malfunction.
TopFM Mauritius
A series of statements last week by the Mauritian Police about the Voice Data Recorder (VDR) of the oil spill ship, Wakashio, has attracted a lot of attention in Mauritius.
There appears to be a divergence from the accounts offered by the Panama Maritime Authorities and what the Wakashio’s Voice Data Recorder reveals.
It will be crucial that this discrepancy is properly investigated, to ensure the uncertainty surrounding the Wakashio does not continue to persist, given the impact the oil spill has had on the country which is still in a state of National Environmental Emergency.
Questions have also been asked about why other vessels
Fortnite won’t be coming back to the App Store any time soon. On Friday, Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers refused to grant Epic Games a preliminary injunction against Apple that would force the game developer to reinstate Fortnite on the App Store, while simultaneously granting an injunction that keeps Apple from retaliating against the Unreal Engine, which Epic also owns (PDF). In other words, we now have a permanent version of the temporary restraining order ruling from last month.
That means the state of affairs, in which Epic is banned from publishing new games on iOS and cannot distribute Fortnite on the App Store in its current form, will remain in place for the length of the trial — unless Epic decides to remove its own in-app payment mechanism that initiated the bitter legal feud in August. Rogers had previously suggested a jury trial might be appropriate as soon as next
Skoda has completed trials of a new smartphone app that it believes could make life much easier for technicians at Skoda dealerships and service centres across Europe.
Called the Skoda Sound Analyser, the app has been developed in-house by Skoda and is a simple diagnostics tool that warns of potential faults in Skoda cars by simply listening to the engine running.
Skoda says the system is so sensitive it can hear even the slightest irregularity in the idling of the engine, and can suggest a range of services and fixes on the spot.
The app records the sound of the engine and compares it with a set of control recordings of healthy Skodas. It can spot discrepancies in the sound signals, and uses an algorithm to suggest the best course of action to a technician. It converts the audio file into a spectrogram – a
Scripps Research chemist Matthew Disney, PhD, and colleagues have created drug-like compounds that, in human cell studies, bind and destroy the pandemic coronavirus’ so-called “frameshifting element” to stop the virus from replicating. The frameshifter is a clutch-like device the virus needs to generate new copies of itself after infecting cells.
“Our concept was to develop lead medicines capable of breaking COVID-19’s clutch,” Disney says. “It doesn’t allow the shifting of gears.”
Viruses spread by entering cells and then using the cells’ protein-building machinery to churn out new infectious copies. Their genetic material must be compact and efficient to make it into the cells.
The pandemic coronavirus stays small by having one string of genetic material encode multiple proteins needed to assemble new virus. A clutch-like frameshifting element forces the cells’ protein-building engines, called ribosomes, to pause, slip to a different gear, or reading frame, and then restart protein assembly anew,
Getting to an acceptable level of infrastructure will play a key role in the eventual public … [+] acceptance of EVs. At present, Tesla’s supercharger network offers the best nationwide charging facilities. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)
Getty Images
If the actions of global automakers are anything to go by, the internal combustion engine, which powered automobiles for over a century, could become obsolete within a few decades. But the shift to electric vehicles (EV), slow to materialize at first, is now accelerating on a global scale due to more stringent government emissions regulations, falling costs, an increasingly positive public attitude towards a growing number of EV choices and a societal reckoning about climate change.
California said this week it plans to phase out sales of conventional new gasoline-powered cars by 2035 in favor of zero-emission vehicles that run on electricity. Governor Gavin Newsom’s executive order no doubt faces a
In the wake of a big technical TWAB regarding Destiny 2 this past week, the good old question of the series getting a “new engine” has surfaced again.
Some are interpreting the recent comments about all the changes to the engine as a smokescreen for the fact that yes, Destiny is effectively getting a new engine. Or if not, they’re just preparing to replace the current engine with a new one down the road and these are just temporary patches.
Neither of these things are true. And in fact, Bungie has come out to say explicitly that no, Destiny is never getting a fully new engine.
MORE FROM FORBESUnderstanding Destiny 2’s Massive New Technical Changes For Beyond LightBy Paul Tassi
This is directly from Chris Kosanovich, Engineering Manager at Bungie, who responded to the frequent engine question in a reddit AMA two full months ago,
Repair company iFixit has completed its teardown of the Apple Watch Series 6, revealing a refined design, a beefier battery, and a bigger Taptic Engine.
The Apple Watch Series 6 launched on Sept. 15 with a few key additions, including a blood oxygen sensor and new color options. As far as outward appearance, however, the device appears virtually the same as the previous Apple Watch Series 5.
On Monday, iFixit released its teardown of a 44mm GPS + LTE Apple Watch Series 6 variant. One of the first things that the site noted is that the new wearable opens to the side, rather than from the top. Opening up the device is also a bit easier because of the removal of Apple’s Force Touch gasket. The pressure-sensing feature was removed in watchOS 7.
Credit: iFixit
The 44mm Apple Watch battery has seen a jump to a 1.17 Wh capacity, which
I tested a 2021 Chevy Trailblazer, with all-wheel-drive in the well-optioned Activ trim.
The as-tested price was $32,350, but the vehicle can be had for $19,000, base.
The Trailblazer borrows some snazzy design cues from the larger Chevy Blazer. These set it apart from the competition, which includes compact crossovers from Kia, Mazda, and Honda.
The Trailblazer has two engine and transmission options. My tester had a 155-horsepower, turbocharged, three-cylinder powerplant that offered nice punch at lower speeds, but that was slow to 60 mph and not as easy on gas as I thought it would be.
What sets the Trailblazer apart from the competition is a suite of technology features, ranging from infotainment to wifi connectivity to driver-assist, that are enviable in a budget package.
Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
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