Lime, the scooter company, will invest $50 million to grow its shared electric bicycle network. This expansion includes adding a new bike model and doubling the number of cities where it operates.
Lime started with shared bikes only to quickly pivot after Bird first introduced the concept of dockless electric scooters in 2017. The company dropped the “bike” from its name and started phasing out its bikes in 2019. But the following year, Lime acquired bike-share company Jump from Uber, and suddenly, bikes were back on the menu.
The new investment in e-bikes comes as cycling is surging around the globe, with bike sales — and especially e-bike sales — hitting record numbers. Legislation has been introduced in the US to make e-bikes more affordable. And bike-share systems are adding more electric models to their fleets in the hopes of attracting more members. Lime says its customers took more than 2.5 million rides on its e-bikes last year, with the company expecting that number to grow significantly in 2021.
Lime will spend $50 million on huge e-bike expansion
Artificial Intelligence Learns to Beat Classic 80s Video Games
An AI system had succeeded in mastering classic 80s video games, including Atari titles such as Montezuma’s Revenge, Pitfall, and Freeway. The AI’s algorithms could one day be used to help robots navigate real-world environments such as disaster zones, according to its creators.
Similar to disaster zones, many hard exploration games present a series of obstacles that must be avoided and paths that must be navigated in order to reach a goal. Previous attempts to create AI capable of solving such games have not worked out, due to the complexities of free exploration.
For instance, many AIs use reinforcement learning – which involves rewarding successful actions – in order to complete a task. The problem with this approach is that rewards tend to be very sparse, making it difficult for a system to achieve its objective.
The only way to solve this issue is by creating an AI that can actively navigate its environment. And to overcome these issues, researchers created a “family of algorithms” which they have called Go-Explore. In a nutshell, this system works by continually archiving every state it encounters, thereby allowing it to remember the paths it chose to discard at each point in the video game. It is then able to immediately return to any one of these promising saved states, thus overcoming both detachment and derailment.
Go-Explore was able to surpass the average human score on Pitfall, a game in which previous algorithms failed to score any points. It also achieved a score of 1.7 million on Montezuma’s Revenge, smashing the puny human world record of 1.2 million points.
Bitcoin hits lowest in 20 days
Bitcoin, the world’s best-know cryptocurrency, dropped 6.39% to $43,165.78 on Sunday, losing $2,944.20 from its previous close.
Mainstream firms such as BNY Mellon and credit card giant Mastercard Inc have backed cryptocurrencies. MicroStrategy, Tesla Inc and Square Inc have invested in bitcoin.
Ether,the coin linked to the ethereum blockchain network, dropped 8.88% to $1,329.46 on Sunday, losing $129.57 from its previous close.
Japanese Companies use technology to their advantage in the battle against food waste
Japanese companies ramp the use of artificial intelligence and other advanced technology to reduce food waste , cut costs during the pandemic and score sustainability points in the process.
Japan disposes more than 6 million tonnes in food waste a year, according to government data. The Japanese government has enacted a new law to halve such costs from 2000 levels by 2030, pressuring companies to find solutions.
Lawson aims to bring down overstock by 30% in sites where it has been rolled out and wants to halve food waste at all of its stores in 2030 compared with 2018.
Drinks maker Suntory Beverage & Food Ltd is experimenting with another AI product from Fujitsu Ltd to try to determine if goods such as bottles of oolong tea and mineral water have been damaged in shipping.
NASA’s Sun Probe got an incredible photo of Venus
NASA’s closest eye on the Sun, the Parker Solar Probe, was passing by Venus last summer for a gravity assist when it snapped a new, striking image of the planet’s nightside, revealing a clear view of the Venusian surface.
The solar probe was launched in 2018. It is in the midst of its seven-year journey to study the Sun from 4 million miles away, the closest any man-made object has gone before. To do this, the Parker Solar Probe needs to use Venusian gravity to help tighten its orbit around the Sun through batches of seven flybys, nudging itself closer to the star with each pass.
The image taken by Parker Solar Probe’s Wide-field Imager (WISPR) came during its third Venus flyby in July 2020, and scientists were shocked. They expected WISPR to capture Venus’ thick, carbon dioxide-rich clouds that usually obstruct views of the surface. But instead, the camera was able to see through the clouds and reveal the dark-tinted shape of Aphrodite Terra, an elevated area of Venus near its equator that scientists say is about 85°F cooler than its surroundings.
The probe might have shown an unexpected capability for sensing infrared light, which could unlock a new potential for scientists to study dust circling the Sun. “This surprising observation sent the WISPR team back to the lab to measure the instrument’s sensitivity to infrared light,” Michael Buckley, communications manager at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, wrote in a NASA blog post.
Scientists Are Building Earth’s “Digital Twin”
The project called Destination Earth is a highly ambitious attempt by scientists from the European Union to model future climate trends and help prepare for potentially catastrophic events.The project also aims to help efforts to become carbon neutral by 2050 and is expected to run for the next 10 years.
“Destination Earth (DestinE) will contribute to the European Commission’s Green Deal and Digital Strategy,” states the press release.
“It will unlock the potential of digital modelling of the Earth’s physical resources and related phenomena such as climate change, water / marine environments, polar areas and the cryosphere, etc. on a global scale to speed up the green transition and help plan for major environmental degradation and disasters.”
In order to create Earth’s digital twin , scientists will be utilizing cloud-based systems and supercomputers to pull a wide amount of computational power. The challenge is that there is a lack of computers in the world that have the raw modeling power to host a model of Earth to a 1- kilometer resolution.
This makes the EU join the digital race with the leading world superpowers to develop supercomputers capable of over one billion calculations per second (called an exascale computer). This will be largely helped by an €8 billion investment into supercomputers, which was given in September 2020.
New AI “Deep Nostalgia” brings very old photos to life
AI powered service called “Deep Nostalgia” animates still photos. The service is offered by online genealogy company MyHeritage which uses AI licensed from D-ID to create the effect that a still photo is moving.
Deep Nostalgia can take photos from any camera and bring them to “life”. The program uses pre-recorded driver videos of facial movements and then applies the ones that are most suitable for the still photo in question. The program can only handle single headshots and can only animate faces
Users would have to sign up for a free account on MyHeritage and then upload a photo. And from there the process is automated. The site enhances the image before animation and creating a gif.The site’s FAQ states it does not provide the photos to third parties, and on its main page a message says “photos uploaded without completing signup are automatically deleted to protect your privacy.”
Citizen will tell you why helicopters are flying overhead
Citizen, the mobile app that sends users location-based safety alerts in real time, announced that it’s introducing helicopter tracking to the app, which will explain to users why there are flying vehicles overhead.
The team told The Verge it employs a 24/7 group to review 911 communications, and now they’ll review data about police helicopters, too. Similar to all the info on Citizen, users can add their own comments and videos about the incident while Citizen verifies it on its end.
The helicopter tool is the latest in Citizen’s arsenal in its attempt to become the place where people get all their local crime info. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it introduced an in-app contact tracing tool, and the company says it’s seen over 7 million sign ups since its launch in 2017.
Facebook’s new app Bars will let you rap over pre-made beats
Facebook will be releasing an app that will let users post and share videos of them rapping over provided beats.
The app is called Bars. Its main selling point is it provides the beats and lets you create 60-second rap videos over them.The app promises “studio quality vocal effects,” including actual, honest-to-goodness AutoTune.
The “Bars” app also promises an auto-rhyme dictionary for those who mark themselves as “beginners” in the app’s sign-up. For those closer to the “Advanced” level, it also promises a Freestyle mode, which gives you eight random words to work into a 16-bar off-the-cuff rap.
The catch is the app seems to be currently in closed beta, but you can at least sign up to secure your username and get a place in line for when the app starts opening up.
Tour the Perseverance Mars Rover’s New Home
Experience a guided tour around the first high-definition 360-degree view of Jezero Crater provided by NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover. Mission experts will walk us through the new Martian terrain, explain why it’s got scientists excited, and answer your questions.
